Starr argues that it was government and political decisions that primarily influenced the development of the post, telegraph, and telephone during the 19th and early 19th centuries. 20th century. Although accurate in some respects, this view is too narrow in that it overlooks the impact that users (individuals and organizations) have had on the development of different technologies. It also overlooks the fact that users of the systems are able to influence the government, either through voting or lobbying, and therefore may be responsible for the very decisions that Starr attributes solely to the government. Starr is probably right about the political origins of the Postal Service as a technology, primarily because it is the only one of the three sociotechnical systems to be owned by the federal government, although there remains some debate over whether it is was a purely political decision or indeed a response to the consuming public given that the legislation passed as it did. As for the telegraph, although Starr spends a lot of time talking about the influence of the bilateral monopoly with the Associated Press and, to a lesser extent, interaction with the railroads, he doesn't seem to make the jump to say that the telegraph The AP and the railways influenced the development of the telegraph from an apolitical point of view. Finally, the telephone was heavily influenced by its users, both directly through the creation of independent telephone companies and indirectly through change in government policy. As for the post, Starr seems to be absolutely right. The postal system has been greatly influenced by government and political decisions. This is probably because...... middle of paper......the political decisions that Starr talks about so much. The decision by AT&T and the federal government to regulate AT&T is the most prominent example, and perhaps also part of the cause of the postal legislation. We also saw that organizations could sometimes form symbiotic relationships with the socio-technical system in which both the user and the system itself benefit greatly from mutual cooperation. The Telegraph emphasizes this principle in its relations with the railroads and, more particularly, with the Associated Press. Ultimately, the fact is that it is never a single factor that determines the growth of institutions as influential and as widespread as the post, telegraph, and telephone. Systems like these should always be analyzed from multiple perspectives in order to truly understand why their development happened in this way..