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Too Poor to Afford the Internet

nytimes.com

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Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#121

Post by Broken_Hippo »

koolba wrote: post #51

> They’re there during the school year, too, even during the winter — it’s the only way they can complete their online math homework. Why is there homework online? Has this been shown to be better in any way for children learning math or just a cop out by lazy teachers to be able to automatically grade the assignments? I can't imagine learning math with anything besides a pencil and paper (yes even calculators are mo…

I took an online college math course, and I'll back up such courses for kids learning. It was the best math course I took.

I had trouble in 'traditional' courses. I completely missed algebra one year. Simply didn't get most of the concepts. I'd listen in class, I'd take notes, read the book, and do the homework nearly every night (Heh. Teenager). And I generally would do poorly on the homework, despite thinking I had done the process correctly.

With the online program, I still used pen and paper. Entered in an answer. The difference was I'd get immediate feedback on whether the answer was correct, and then get the option to try again.

The program had a system that would walk me through the problem, having me solve step by step, explaining on the way. It would repeat this process with similar problems as much as necessary. Then give a similar problem for me to answer for the homework.

In addition, there were study tests. These did not have the help feature (like the actual tests), but did give immediate feedback and suggested certain things you needed improvement on.

These things were really key to my being somewhat confident in math and passing the course. Of course, i'm pretty sure they could be software instead of online which would solve a single problem.

Now, I might be unique. I think I'm mildly dyslexic - I still mispell some simple words, get times tables mixed up, and have to think about right and left, for example. But the computer software (and calculators, to a lesser extent) help me know where I commonly have mistakes, much like spellcheck helps me out greatly.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#122

Post by Broken_Hippo »

ams6110 wrote: post #98

I question the premise. I cannot think of anything I do online at home that is essential to my being a productive member of society. 90% of my internet use at home is for entertainment. It's today's cable TV. It's not essential.

How do you think your life would be if you couldn't access the 10% that is not entertainment? I'll argue this stuff will at times be a large quality of life issue especially if you are poor.

Like others have said, governments are moving things online. Some things, though available in person, are too far for travel and telephone hours are short. If you are working a couple of jobs, you might miss some work just to do basic things, which is really detrimental. Even simple tax returns give money sooner, which might be the difference between someone having housing and not.

Utility companies have started to charge people more if they get a physical bill instead of online billing. Reduced or witholding installation charges if you sign up for internet, cable, or whatnot online.

Maybe you just need a phone number. Increasingly phone books are becoming rarer, so you might not have access. Or the number changed, or you need some governement phone number that isn't listed. Maybe you simply need hours or a doctor's phone number. Internet provides this more readily.

More and more companies are using online only applications. I worked for a pharmacy that simply did not take paper applications or CVs. They did not have a kiosk in the store.

Libraries are great for access, until they are out of your range or you don't have one in your township and have to pay for a card. Many smaller libraries have too few computers, a short time limit (30 minutes), and a lack of privacy. Plus there are transportation costs.

Such transportation costs actually are most detrimental to the poor.

Now, most folks will have the biggest gain in entertainment. But really, this helps you be more productive as well. You can make small talk at work, you can relax after the day, interact with family, and other such things. It is good for mental health in some respects.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#123

Post by int_19h »

ams6110 wrote: post #98

I question the premise. I cannot think of anything I do online at home that is essential to my being a productive member of society. 90% of my internet use at home is for entertainment. It's today's cable TV. It's not essential.

This reminded me of the following exchange from Bujold's "Barrayar":

“Poor?” said Cordelia, bewildered. “No electricity? How can it be on the com network?”

“It’s not, of course,” answered Vorkosigan.

“Then how can anybody get their schooling?”

“They don’t.”

Cordelia stared. “I don’t understand. How do they get their jobs?”

“A few escape to the Service. The rest prey on each other, mostly.” Vorkosigan regarded her face uneasily. “Have you no poverty on Beta Colony?”

“Poverty? Well, some people have more money than others, of course, but . . . no comconsoles?”

Vorkosigan was diverted from his interrogation. “Is not owning a comconsole the lowest standard of living you can imagine?” he said in wonder.

“It’s the first article in the constitution. ‘Access to information shall not be abridged.’ ”

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#124

Post by wolfgke »

PeterisP wrote: post #94
dragonwriter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the universities really cared about open access, they could unionize against the publishers. If universities really , really cared, they could band together and set up their own journal publishing organization (many universities do have their own academic publishing arms, but a single-university journal publisher probably would be harder to establish respect for than one sponsored by a broad coalition of major u…

It's not enough to set up new journals. Until you convince everyone who matters (in your area of research) to use only the new journals, you still need the subscriptions to all the old journals as well, until (if!) they are abandoned and lose all status.

Aaron Swartz alredy wrote about that in his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto; https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...):

"There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought

valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure

their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But

even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future.

Everything up until now will have been lost."

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#125

Post by wolfgke »

gumby wrote: post #22

Another huge aspect of poverty and internet access is the increasing number of households who don't have wifi but use only their phones for internet access. ("one-quarter of those earning below the median income and one-third of those living below poverty level accessed the Internet only through their mobile devices." https://theconversation.com/many-low-income-students-use-onl... and if you want more http://qz.com/5…

I'm a little bit surprised: Raspberry Pi 3, say, 40$ (current price on Adafruit). Let's say 70$ for RPi + power adapter + enclosure + mouse + keyboard + SD card. You surely have a TV. Use your mobile phone to set up a hotspot - problem solved. If this is still too expensive: There are lots of hobbyists having old RPi lying around. Or companies that have old mouses and keyboards lying around that aren't used anymore and are happy to give them away for a symbolic sum.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#126

Post by koolba »

escherize wrote: post #68
koolba wrote: post #51

> They’re there during the school year, too, even during the winter — it’s the only way they can complete their online math homework. Why is there homework online? Has this been shown to be better in any way for children learning math or just a cop out by lazy teachers to be able to automatically grade the assignments? I can't imagine learning math with anything besides a pencil and paper (yes even calculators are mo…

Do you actually believe the public school system's goal is to educate children? More like freeing up parents to go to work (and tax), and employing teachers and administrators. It's nearly impossible to fire teachers, thanks to a public sector union who's got their back. School is like a prison for kids. One form of punishment is detention - more school. Also, "In the 2000 report, commissioned by the American Associa…

> Do you actually believe the public school system's goal is to educate children? More like freeing up parents to go to work (and tax), and employing teachers and administrators. It's nearly impossible to fire teachers, thanks to a public sector union who's got their back.

They do a shitty job of that as well. To solve that problem school should be year round, start at 8am and end after 5pm. That way a parent can have a full time job without having to take their kid to school after their job starts and picking them up before it ends.

> So, asking if something the public school system is doing is student focused betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of its purpose.

It's implementation that's flawed, not the idea. Public schools are a grand concept and can work. They just need to fix the hours, get rid of the teacher's unions (don't like it? Great, go work somewhere else!), and hire proper teachers. While you're at it replace defined benefit plans with defined contribution one's so the full costs are accounted for rather than passed on to the kids in the classroom.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#127

Post by koolba »

Jach wrote: post #77
koolba wrote: post #51

> They’re there during the school year, too, even during the winter — it’s the only way they can complete their online math homework. Why is there homework online? Has this been shown to be better in any way for children learning math or just a cop out by lazy teachers to be able to automatically grade the assignments? I can't imagine learning math with anything besides a pencil and paper (yes even calculators are mo…

A math course without a computer is not a modern math course. Humans are not going to advance the field, or even keep up to date, when it is insisted that students do everything their equally intelligent predecessors did plus new things. Something has got to go, and top of my list is a vast amount of pen and paper bullshit.

> A math course without a computer is not a modern math course.

Why does it have to be a modern math course and what part of elementary school math is "modern math"? Counting, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and even calculus are hundreds of years old.

> Humans are not going to advance the field, or even keep up to date, when it is insisted that students do everything their equally intelligent predecessors did plus new things.

I'm not saying don't use advanced technology, I'm saying you don't need advanced technology to learn anything from 1 + 1 = 2 through differential equations. It's a hindrance, not an asset.

> Something has got to go, and top of my list is a vast amount of pen and paper bullshit.

The idea that technology can solve everything is what needs to go. At some point people need to sit down and put the time and effort into learning. You can't automate and gamify everything.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#128

Post by forloop »

adrusi wrote: post #108
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just say how much more civil the comments are here on HN re: libraries as opposed to, say, the last article I read on reddit[0] re: the subject. Seems the only thing they could do is complain about the homeless. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4txauf/internet_cant...

Are you suggesting that it's not a legitimate grievance? Unless people are lying about, for instance, people watching porn in libraries, it does seem like there's a problem with the civility of that discussion. I haven't seen anything like that in my area, but I have seen lines of 16 or so desks being used as arcades, which can be okay so long as people remain quiet. But I've seen people have to ask gamers to leave i…

They said it was civil. The subject shouldn't be talked about because it could offend someone, not that it wasn't legitimate.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#129

Post by rayiner »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #116
Fej wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which isn't true anyway.

Re: Too Poor to Afford the Internet

#130

Post by rahimnathwani »

rayiner wrote: post #28
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?

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…

"The vast majority of the cost of any kind of infrastructure is labor, which scales with local wages."

I'm not sure that's true. Let's say it costs VeriCast $500/year to maintain a single home's landline and broadband connections (including the stuff in the street), for which they charge the customer say $700 per year. Do they really have one employee per 200 connections (assuming $100k full-loaded cost per employee)? That would be 500,000 employees in the USA, if 83% of households have broadband. That's about the total number of employees of ComCast, Verizon and AT&T. But those folks provide other services (like cellular service). Where is my math wrong?

Even we accept that it is true, it's not relevant, because the price paid by the customer is as much about the willingness of customers to pay, as it is about the running costs.

Even if we believe it's relevant, because the price customers are willing to pay vary with local incomes, experience tells us that local incomes don't tell us the whole story. People in London pay less for broadband (~$300 per year for phone and broadband, including taxes[0]) than those in San Francisco. I don't see how that is explained by labour costs.

[0] http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband

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