In fact, the internet was born out of the American military, i.e., government, and American universities, not "American capitalism"
The first time I used this internet, there were rules against using it for commerce
The original internet had rules against using it for commercial activity
It lacked "economic freedoms"
FWIW I still found it worth using at the time, despite no so-called "tech" companies
It also lacked websites of unmanageable size with hundreds of millions of pages of user-generated content used as bait to lure in ad targets for data collection and surveillance, so-called "platforms" or "social media"
It lacked "age verification" to access those websites because those websites did not exist
There will be at least one HN reply arguing that the original internet sucked, or some other brainless dismissal
As if the internet we have now does not suck. Clearly, it does suck for some people
It is not a lack of "economic freedoms" on the internet that has led to "age verification". It's quite the opposite
Intellectually lazy? What are you even talking about? Stay on topic, you are embarrassing yourself.
This was before the www