free distribution meant new ways of connecting would be assured. These
protections were largely architectural. This architecture is now changing.
And as it changes, as with the threats to liberty, there is a threat here to in-
novation.

In both cases, the conclusion is the same. We can architect this space in
any number of ways. Some architectures protect liberty, others do not.
Some architectures protect innovation, others do not. But nothing assures
that the first version of the Net's architecture will survive through its matu-
rity. Indeed, in both cases, there is all the pressure in the world to say that
the first version will not survive.

As the old Net gets replaced by the new, as old interests succeed in pro-
tecting themselves against the new, we face a fundamental choice. We can
embrace this return to the architecture of creativity that has defined modern
American life -- perpetual control by homogeneous corporations of a system
for creativity focused primarily on a mass audience. Or we can embrace the
architecture the Net was. This is a choice we cannot avoid, and in the next
chapter, I offer points of resistance to the trend we now see.

[[239]]

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