The most important lesson of the internet age is that we can’t anticipate what will happen when we give people — from talented engineers and developers to everyday users — an exciting new platform … along with the freedom to innovate on top of it.

Few could have predicted how profoundly the internet would change our economy. In fact, it was considered “both anti-social and illegal” to use the precursor ARPAnet for commercial activities until 1989. But thanks to the “permissionless innovation” of an open platform, we now have the internet’s seemingly endless uses — not to mention its economic benefits.

This lesson matters because today, we’re on the cusp of opening up another such platform for innovation: drones. Like the internet, airspace is a platform for commercial and social innovation.