Indeed according to the big private businesses at the time the internet was stupid and a money losing idea.

It's a common thing in American history where the US government invests in ideas/concepts that are seen as losers by the for profit industry only for those industries to swoop in and profit off the results...

Stuff like that and the American national standards institute is why the USA was in the front of the technological evolution for so long. We spent money on "useless" crap that ended up paying massive dividends later and allowed for the USA to set the standards.

This massively obscures all the Incredible efforts by those companies over the decades to bring us from unreliable, insecure, hyper slow, wired proof of concept to something so valuable everyone will pay for it.

Just take the L man. That's the case for every technology after it was invented