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Too Poor to Afford the Internet

nytimes.com

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Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#111

Post by gcb0 »

jawns wrote: post #10

Can I just say how much I love the way public libraries have navigated themselves into the digital age? They are, as this piece points out, very popular places to access computers and the Internet, and many libraries offer a wealth of digital content. I can check out and instantly download e-books and audiobooks and movies from my library. It's certainly conceivable that they might have transitioned less well. There…

the shocking truth is that the government red tape proved to be less detrimental to knowledge sharing than DRM.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#112

Post by [deleted] »

linkregister wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the cost of any kind of infrastructure is labor, which scales with local wages.[1] A New York subway ticket is about $2.75. That's about 11x more than the cost of a ticket on the Kiev Metro. And it's not like the New York subway makes a profit--fares cover only about half the system's operating costs.[2] In Baltimore, I paid about $50 for a 50mbps connection, or about 20x more than a subway ticke…

How did you get that $50/50Mbps deal in Baltimore? Was this part of a bundle for cable television?

[deleted]

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#113

Post by dilemma »

jawns wrote: post #10

Can I just say how much I love the way public libraries have navigated themselves into the digital age? They are, as this piece points out, very popular places to access computers and the Internet, and many libraries offer a wealth of digital content. I can check out and instantly download e-books and audiobooks and movies from my library. It's certainly conceivable that they might have transitioned less well. There…

>Bookstores have felt those pains hard; it's not that people don't want content, but they want content in different forms, and a lot of bookstores just couldn't move fast enough.

I'd say rather than people preferring digital, its the browsing and buying experience of the same old printed matter that needs to change for them to stay competitive. Bookstores have until now been little more than warehouses that store books, and let people walk in and buy them. That same function is done better by Amazon.

What an updated bookstore needs to be about is the experience: Curation and recommendations so that you can find books that you didn't know you'd love (this is invaluable), a nice environment that makes you want to go there and makes books feel exciting. It should also hold events - launches, readings, discussions, exhibitions, workshops. It has to be more than a warehouse, basically.

This encompasses retail for all industries: Experience, service, novelty.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#114

Post by icebraining »

dilemma wrote: post #113
jawns wrote: post #10

Can I just say how much I love the way public libraries have navigated themselves into the digital age? They are, as this piece points out, very popular places to access computers and the Internet, and many libraries offer a wealth of digital content. I can check out and instantly download e-books and audiobooks and movies from my library. It's certainly conceivable that they might have transitioned less well. There…

>Bookstores have felt those pains hard; it's not that people don't want content, but they want content in different forms, and a lot of bookstores just couldn't move fast enough. I'd say rather than people preferring digital, its the browsing and buying experience of the same old printed matter that needs to change for them to stay competitive. Bookstores have until now been little more than warehouses that store boo…

While it's not just a bookstore, I think Fnac is a good example of this: many stores have a kind of coffeeshop inside where you can read the books (for free) and where they regularly host small concerts and discussions with book and movie authors.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#115

Post by lake99 »

gozur88 wrote: post #101
lake99 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I understand why Russian-speakers dominate many gaming communities. I pay around 20$ for an 8mbps connection, with a monthly download limit of about 50GB. Now you know why there won't be Indians competing in global e-leagues for a long time to come.

I, for one, look forward to the day I can learn to swear in languages other than Russian and Tagalog. But why is it relatively more expensive? Have Indian companies rigged the rules such that they don't have to compete with each other? I thought Indian labor was relatively inexpensive.

I have no idea if net connectivity is rigged now. Back in the day when cable TV operators ruled the roost, I had heard of existing operators of a neighbourhood ganging up against new entrants. With ISPs, even the last-mile connectivity is handled by major ISPs, so that seems unlikely.

Overall, I don't understand what's going on with Indian ISPs. For example, my traceroute to qoo10.sg (hosted in Korea) reveals traffic going from Bangalore to Delhi to London to Fremont (US) to Japan to Korea. For various other places that are supposed to be close by, I see traffic going all the way to Delhi and then coming back.

I think the demand for broadband is still very low here, and so, unoptimal strategies (from a network packet's POV) are good enough for our ISPs.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#116

Post by WillPostForFood »

Fej wrote: post #18
drops wrote: post #13

Interesting. I live in a country with a minimum wage of $58 a month (Ukraine) and yet the internet is one of the few things that pretty much anyone can afford: high speed connections (50-100mbps) cost about $2-4; rarely more. Are american high prices the result of scummy pricing on the corporations' side or is it an actual infrastructural issue that prevents the ISPs from providing cheap connections to everyone?

It is 100% a corporate issue. In the US, many people have only one choice for an Internet/TV/phone provider. Some have two choices. It is exceedingly rare to find a place with three choices. Telecoms are typically granted local monopolies. As a result, they can charge pretty much what they want. And they do. Even in markets with a duopoly, companies very rarely attempt to beat each other on price, it's not in their b…

It can't be a 100% a corporate issue if, as you point out, telecoms are granted local monopolies. Governments grant those monopolies.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#117

Post by kalleboo »

crazy1van wrote: post #106
justinph wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you actually believe the public school system's goal is to educate children? Absolutely. It doesn't work out perfect every time in every place, but it does a pretty amazing job of that given the poor level of funding and constant bashing from the entitled anti-union right. Freeing up parents is a wonderful side effect that has worked out pretty well for contemporary society. If you're surprised that kids going t…

> given the poor level of funding Do you have a source for this? According to an OECD study I found, the US spends among the most in the world per pupil on education. https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/apr/21/jeb...

From your link:

> Traditionally the United States spends big parts of its educational budget on non-instructional items such as security -- more so than some other nations.

Whenever I read about the US I'm absolutely terrified

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#118

Post by jitix »

Spooky23 wrote: post #25
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #11

Is it really $50 per month for basic internet in New York? In the UK https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/packages/ shows the cheapest broadband package - which includes telephone line rental - to be £18 per month (average across the contract when delivered router is included). That's around $25 (you can get "free" with a telephone service). What struck me was the kid in the header image has a swanky new laptop, the sto…

I live in Albany, NY and pay TWC $80 for a 50/5 connection. $50 gets you 25/1. Our stupid state government gave them more money to make 50/5 100/7. Our library gets a lot of Internet patronage. In our city the library has done a great job of transitioning into a third place. People like to use the "think of the poor children" card, but I see all walks of life there. It's a great place.

Does TWC have different prices in different places?!! This seems so wrong. I'm paying $45 for 50/5 TWC connection in Raleigh, NC.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#119

Post by mankash666 »

I'm genuinely curious as to why the kids aren't availing the FCC lifeline program. Can someone explain how and why a mechanism built to solve this exact problem isn't working, given that $7B was attributed to 3 communications related welfare programs by the FCC.
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