alt Hacker NewsThe article kind of misses out on the networking standards of the time - there were many of which TCP and IP were just one, most of the rest were either proprietary (DNA SNA BNA etc) and incompatible, or owned by telecoms who wanted to be able to charge per packet(X.25).
TCP/IP won (IMHO) because the implementation was open source, and because no one was going to make a buck by locking others out (or charging them for the right to build an implementation). Plus there was a working reference implementation available for the taking
Same story with UNIX and C "success".
Everything else was commercial, while by being prevented to sell UNIX, AT&T was fine with giving its source code to universities for a symbolic price for sending the tapes, and the Lion's book.
It changed quite fast the moment AT&T was allowed to claim ownership, however just like with IBM and PC clones, AT&T could no longer take control over UNIX.