Isn't that because according to some in the Senate the Internet is just a series of pipes? Wish I was saying this mode in jest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes

But Ted Stevens got the mental model right. The internet is supposed to be a series of tubes, the tube is supposed not to care what flows through it. This approach has been very good for innovation, very much unlike the walled gardens we are seeing today.

This. When talking to extremely non-technical people (or being one yourself), who are we to begrudge a few abstractions?

Isn't the important thing that it's a appropriate and functional abstraction in the problem space in which it's deployed?

As funny as it is watching him explain how he understood it, the fact remains is he probably understood it better than the majority of people in that room.