Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Non commercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit of the cheap and local kind) dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions, certain educational institutions and religious groups commenced "public radio" broadcasts.
This is followed by the Commercial Phase.
When the users (e.g., listeners in the case of the radio, or owners of PCs and modems in the example of the Internet) reach a critical mass – the business sector is alerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another religion, really) it demands "privatisation" of the medium. This harps on very sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition; corruption and inefficiency which are naturally associated with the public sector ("Other People's Money" – OPM); the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous American Paranoia); a lack of variety and of catering to the tastes and interests of certain audiences; the equation private enterprise = democracy and more.
The end result is the same: the private sector takes over the medium from "below" (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium – that they cannot possibly refuse) – or from "above" (successful lobbying in the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium is "privatised").
Every privatisation – especially that of a medium – provokes public opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of the public were compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialisation and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelisation of the medium are evoked – and justified, in due time. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen – but the pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and public attention reverts to fresher issues.
A new Communications Act was legislated in the USA in 1934. It was meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold to the private sector, which will use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In other words: the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands. Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.
The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the networks and, thus, privatised its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.
A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted "organized anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other's territories.
Phone companies will be allowed to transmit video and cable companies will be allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This is all phased over a long period of time – still, it is a revolution whose magnitude is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries an equally momentous price tag – official censorship. "Voluntary censorship", to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities, to be sure – still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening litigation – but, beneath the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes both in the cable and in the internet media.
The third phase is Institutionalisation.