The Internet/WWW is new only in the sense of pervasive use by the public.

The Arpanet was envisioned in 1959. It went online in 1969. The Internet/WWW evolved gradually from the Arpanet.

The Internet and X.25 packet-switched public data networks (PSPDNs) developed out of Arpanet research. Both the Internet Protocol (IP) and X.25 are designed for switching packets among end hosts. The IP-based Internet became more successful because IP network researchers implemented 2nd order packet switching among end host networks, each of which in older terminology used to be called a communications subnet. The presence of 2nd order packet switching in the architecture of the Internet simplifies the problem of providing universal resource sharing among end hosts connected to the Internet.

By the time the WWW started with the development of HTTP based services in 1989, there was already a large body of caselaw that applied to PSPDNs.

Samuel Morse sent his first telegraph message (a digital letter) in 1844. The caselaw of digital transmission of a message is larger and longer established than the caselaw of common carriage via a PSPDN.

I summarize in the petition to SCOTUS (21-6916) for writ of certiorari before judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Martillo v. Twitter (21-1921)
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