Absolutely, zero doubt about it!
>You have any idea of the value that was created by having it happen many years earlier?
There's no early or late, it happened when it happened.
Also www means "world wide web" which, by definition, implies a collaborative effort of the whole ... world? Sure, props to the US for lighting the first spark, but after that everyone did their part, even us, its users.
I'd estimate the "GDP" and traffic related to public institutions as a single-digit percentage of the whole web.
It’s like saying Pythagoras created all of modern math, including calculus.
Had he waited a couple of months we would have essentially the exact same thing with a different name.
TCP/IP and lower level protocols that connected everything together is really the boon. The protocols for how we exchange data on top were inevitable.
Private sector delivered the Internet. Academia researched and established standards. What the US government did was having the foresight to understand this need and grant research funds and contracts to the sectors able to deliver.
It's not a negligible contribution by any means but it's pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
edit: replied to the wrong comment, but it's still relevant to the assertion that the internet would have been invented without public funding
The burden of proof always seems to fall on people who live in reality.