User bmacho cites this Superuser question [1] in a reply to a downvoted comment at the bottom of this thread. It’s much more illuminating than the OP emails; Michael Hampton’s answer in particular is amazing. I had never heard of Jon Postel before.

[1] https://superuser.com/questions/784978/why-did-the-ietf-spec...

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morning-coffee 4 days ago | parent [-]

> I had never heard of Jon Postel before.

Reading this makes me a bit sad and reminds me that I'm older now and lucky to have grown up during the golden age of the Internet.

	▲	Sharlin 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Mm. I’m an older millennial, so solidly in the Web 1.0 generation, but never had the chance to use the internet before the web took off. I missed BBSs too, which were big where I’m from (probably bigger than the pre-Web internet, outside universities at least). I was fourteen when Postel died in 1998. My earliest memories of internet use are probably from ’96 or so, using library or school computers after classes.