The Internet and the Web are not the same thing
One is a global network of cables and computers; the other is just one way of using it — and they were built decades apart.
People use “the internet” and “the web” as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. The internet is the physical and logical infrastructure — the worldwide web of cables, routers and computers that connect to one another. The World Wide Web is just one service that runs on top of it, alongside email, video calls and file transfers.
The internet came first. In 1974, computer scientists Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf designed TCP/IP, a shared set of rules that let different networks talk to one another. IP addresses every connected device so data can find it; TCP chops messages into packets and reassembles them at the far end. That “network of networks” is what internet literally means.
The web arrived 15 years later, when Tim Berners-Lee added HTTP and the browser. So every time you open a web page, you’re using the web — but when you send an email or stream a film, you’re using the internet without the web at all.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
