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>The internet was built on good will, fun, and generally good intent.

The main catalyst for the internet was the fear of nuclear war, as exemplified in this influential RAND paper from 1960 [0], which led to the investment in ARPANET. I'm not disputing good will and good intent, but I don't think fun had much to do with it.

[0] http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P1995....

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By the time you get to the opening up of the internet to mere non-defence mortals, there was plenty of fun.

There was a beautiful sweet spot between the earliest ISPs around 1990, and the end of fun once the effects of the mid 90s ending of NSF's ban on commercial activity fully kicked in. Probably late 90s/millennium as the first dot com boom turned into full on idiotic bubble.

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