Science & Tech Quote by Jon Postel

Postel’s line reads like a kindergarten truism, which is exactly why it lands: it strips the Internet of its usual mythology. Not faster fiber, not venture capital, not “disruption” - cooperation. Coming from the engineer who helped steward the early Internet’s naming and addressing systems, it’s also quietly corrective. The network isn’t a law of nature; it’s a social agreement expressed in protocols, norms, and a lot of people choosing to play by the same rules even when no one can force them to.

The intent is almost parental, and historically accurate. In Postel’s era, the Internet’s center of gravity was researchers, public institutions, volunteer working groups, and rough consensus. “Works” doesn’t mean “exists”; it means functions reliably enough that strangers can communicate, route traffic, and resolve conflicts without constant centralized arbitration. That reliability is a moral achievement as much as a technical one.

The subtext has teeth. If cooperation is the operating system, then fragmentation is the real existential threat: competing standards, walled gardens, state-level splintering, companies optimizing for lock-in, users pushed into performative distrust. Postel is also defending a certain ethic of infrastructure: the best networks disappear into the background, maintained by people who accept unglamorous responsibility for shared systems.

Today, the quote reads less like a celebration than a warning label. The Internet still “works,” but the cooperative bargain that made it boringly dependable is under stress. Postel’s reminder is that connectivity is a choice we keep re-making, together, or we don’t get it at all.