That's a completely different argument, though an interesting one to have. The WSJ editorial was not arguing that hypothetically the private sector could have created the internet, even though in actual fact it didn't. That's at least a plausible claim. But the WSJ instead argued, incorrectly, that the private sector did create the internet, without significant government involvement. The main justification seems to be a claim that Ethernet is an internetworking technology and was created by Xerox, and that ARPANET shouldn't be considered significant to this history. The article is very confused, and more or less just wrong, not making any sort of interesting point about historical contingency.
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That's a completely different argument, though an interesting one to have. The WSJ editorial was not arguing that hypothetically the private sector could have created the internet, even though in actual fact it didn't. That's at least a plausible claim. But the WSJ instead argued, incorrectly, that the private sector did create the internet, without significant government involvement. The main justification seems to be a claim that Ethernet is an internetworking technology and was created by Xerox, and that ARPANET shouldn't be considered significant to this history. The article is very confused, and more or less just wrong, not making any sort of interesting point about historical contingency.