Since the Internet burst into the public's consciousness during the mid–1990s, it has transformed almost every aspect of daily life. At that time, the economic and technological environment surrounding the Internet remained simple: a small number of users ran a handful of applications over a narrow range of technologies. However, time has undermined these premises. The number of Internet users has grown exponentially and become increasingly diverse, the simple applications that once dominated the Internet have been joined by video and cloud computing, and wireless broadband and fiber optics have emerged as viable alternatives to handle the additional transmission burden placed on the network by these changes. The Dynamic Internet makes the case for viewing the Internet as a dynamic entity whose success and growth have resulted from an environment that enabled its evolution.

Christopher S. Yoo explores the important lessons this framework provides for policymakers and scholars as both the Internet and Internet policy move forward. The Internet is becoming less standardized, more subject to formal governance, and more reliant on intelligence located at the core of the network. At the same time, Internet pricing is becoming more complex, and intermediaries are playing a more crucial role. Put simply, the total convergence of all forms of communications into a single network may turn out to be a myth, and policies based on this assumption may be ill-advised.

Creating policy based on a static view of the Internet would chain a changing entity to inevitably outdated circumstances and would poorly serve both users and industry innovators. This groundbreaking volume calls on policymakers and scholars to replace this static view with a dynamic one that is flexible enough to permit the Internet to evolve and meet the changing needs of the future.     

Christopher S. Yoo is the University of Pennsylvania Law School's John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science and director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition.