Internet as Peer to Peer

Peer to peer refers explicity to the design principles behind P2P filesharing, but the internet's inherent design principles, its end to end or point to point philosophy, also strongly prefigured the full and conscious use of P2P principles in the design of computer networks.

Here's a quote of Vint Cerf illustrating this:

"The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings - from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging - that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design." (http://www.circleid.com/posts/vint_cerf_speaking_out_on_internet_neutrality/)