"The bottom line: Polling suggests Americans remain skeptical of Big Tech even as companies push aggressively into AI products."
These companies did not "build" the internet, they occupied it as middlemen
"The companies that built the early internet are the ones speeding to disrupt it in order to avoid being the disruptees of the AI age."
The "internet" is a network of networks, hence the prefix "inter", and, by and large, telcos own the network infrastructure in cooperation with governments, not "Big Tech"
With respect to internet protocols and software, with few exceptions, companies didn't "build the early internet." Universities did. The exceptions included telephone company subsidiaries like Bell Labs. There were no so-called "tech" companies (intermediaries, middlemen) doing data collection, surveillance and online advertising "services" as a "business model"
Not only that, the web is just one protocol. One that has become infested with surveillance and ads. The internet allows for a multitude of protocols
It's insane how people refer to a few websites as "the internet"
Then there's that idiotic term "disrupt"
In the traditional sense of the term, things that are "disrupted" usually return back to normal, eventually
Disruption is only temporary not permanent