The Internet Is a Human Right At first, I was surprised to see a New York Times OpEd by Vint Cerf with the title “Internet Access Is Not a Human Right .” But once I started to read I began to understand the point that Cerf was trying to make. It comes out clearest in the sentence “technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself” which in modified form is also part of our investment thesis at Union Square Ventures. We don’t invest in technology per se, but what that technology allows startups to build. That’s an important distinction. We don’t go looking for “mobile startups” but rather startups that use “mobile” to do something that wasn’t possible before . Yet I think Cerf is selling the Internet short, which is ironic given that he is one of its co-creators. The Internet is not really a technology but rather a set of principles that have become embodied in a bunch of different technologies. I am going to quote at some length from a document that Cerf also co-authored about the history of the Internet :…