T his internet barely existed in a commercial sense 25 years ago. In the mid1990s, when the data packets travelled to users over dial-up, the main internet traffic consisted of email, file transfer, and a few web applications. For such content, users typically could tolerate delays. Of course, the internet today is a vast and interconnected system of software applications and computing devices, which society uses to exchange information and services to support business, shopping, and leisure. Not only does data traffic for streaming, video, and gaming applications comprise the majority of traffic for internet service providers and reach users primarily through broadband lines, but typically those users would not tolerate delays in these applications (for usage statistics, see Nevo, Turner, and Williams 2016; McManus et al. 2018; Huston 2017). In recent years, the rise of smartphones and Wi-Fi access has supported growth of an enormous range of new businesses in the “sharing economy” (like, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb), in mobile information services (like, social media, ticketing, and messaging), and in many other applications. More than 80 percent of US households own at least one smartphone, rising from virtually zero in 2007 (available at the Pew Research Center 2019 Mobile Fact Sheet). More than 86 percent of homes with access to broadband internet employ some form of Wi-Fi for accessing applications (Internet and Television Association 2018). It seems likely that standard procedures for GDP accounting underestimate the output of the internet, including the output affiliated with “free” goods and the restructuring of economic activity wrought by changes in the composition of firms who use advertising (for discussion, see Nakamura, Samuels, and Soloveichik The Basic Economics of Internet Infrastructure

中文翻译：

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互联网基础设施的基本经济学

25年前，其互联网在商业上几乎不存在。在1990年代中期，当数据包通过拨号传输给用户时，主要的互联网流量包括电子邮件，文件传输和一些Web应用程序。对于此类内容，用户通常可以容忍延迟。当然，当今的互联网是软件应用程序和计算设备的庞大且相互连接的系统，社会用来交换信息和服务以支持商务，购物和休闲。流，视频和游戏应用程序的数据流量不仅构成互联网服务提供商的主要流量，并且主要通过宽带线路到达用户，而且通常这些用户不能容忍这些应用程序的延迟（有关使用情况统计信息，请参阅Nevo，Turner和Williams 2016; McManus等人2018; Huston 2017）。近年来，智能手机和Wi-Fi接入的兴起为“共享经济”（如Uber，Lyft和Airbnb），移动信息服务（如社交媒体，票务和消息传递）以及许多其他应用程序中。超过80％的美国家庭拥有至少一部智能手机，而2007年几乎为零（可在Pew Research Center 2019移动资料表中找到）。超过86％的可访问宽带互联网的家庭使用某种形式的Wi-Fi来访问应用程序（Internet and Television Association 2018）。GDP核算的标准程序似乎低估了互联网的产出，