The Internet is no longer an experiment.
Well, yes and no. I take very well your point that it's a very large public
utility (in the sense of something that people depend on), but at the same
time we (i.e. humans) haven't ever built a system like this before, so it's
inevitably "an experiment".
And remember...
...the earth is just an experiment run by mice, the most intelligent creature
on the earth.
Dave
ps. Sorry. Had to do it for the Douglas Adams fans...