If I remember correctly, people assumed that Wheeler had a deep hatred in his heart for the cable company oligopoly in America which stonewalled his company/invention from taking root in the states. A brief look at his wiki page seems to tell some of that story, calling the Nabu Network “the internet, 10 years ahead of its time”. Imagine if you essentially invented the internet, the cable companies prevented your invention from coming to fruition, and then someone went and implemented it on phone lines instead shortly after.

There’s more to the story than just cable oligopoly rat fucks, including technical and arbitrary limitations of the technology, compared to the standardized open web we know.

Meanwhile, this guy is a straight up conservative hatchet man installed to damage and destabilize. He holds no grudges against the folks enriching him.