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Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

theguardian.com

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Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#91

Post by goldfeld »

nedp wrote: post #50
dannyr wrote: post #22

This is mostly Facebook since it's zero-rated where most Filipino mobile users are prepaid. Young and old, rich and poor Filipinos are glued to their phones like zombies all day browsing Facebook.

Filipino here. I blame carriers here for making Facebook free-of-charge. Yes, good thing that Messenger let's us send messages for free. But the thing is, we can't see images nor visit links unless you get a data pack/promo or connect to a Wi-Fi. Especially news, people can't see thumbnails or click links so they directly jump to wrong assumptions based on what they see and hear from the comments. Some people just lo…

So like Hacker News? (guilty as charged, and no offense intended since it's not really comparable)

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#92

Post by wyclif »

endless1234 wrote: post #78
wyclif wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oppo, which is a top Chinese smartphone maker, has a huge share of the Filipino market. And how they market these phones here in the Philippines is very revealing. The ads say: "Oppo: the selfie phone." That's right, the phone is actually marketed as a device primarily for taking selfies, not voice, SMS, or web.

That's pretty standard everywhere, though? It's not like the newest iPhone would be marketed with "iPhone - the phone that makes calls and sends texts"

Apple doesn't market the iPhone as a selfie phone. No, they wouldn't market it as a device designed exclusively for calls and SMS either, but that isn't quite the same thing since the word "phone" is still part of its name.

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#93

Post by njarboe »

mruts wrote: post #82
ygkkojr6 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredible how condescending people here are. Since you see no value in Facebook, those who use it a lot must be uneducated barbarians who are not willing to spend their time on [thing you enjoy]

Economists talk about “revealed preference,” that is, people enjoy the things that they do. But I don’t think that’s actually true. FB, like drugs, short-circuits your brain and just because your reward system is hacked and you spend all day doing it doesn’t mean you actually are getting real value from it.

Like people retired people who will spend all day and most of their disposable income sitting in front of a slot machine pushing a button. I imagine that is not what most of them wish they were doing with their lives.

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#94

Post by goobynight »

zavi wrote: post #32
dannyr wrote: post #22

This is mostly Facebook since it's zero-rated where most Filipino mobile users are prepaid. Young and old, rich and poor Filipinos are glued to their phones like zombies all day browsing Facebook.

That's very condescending towards Filipinos.

Have you considered that a negative comment about a group can be true, without any bias towards the group?

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#95

Post by apostacy »

kaetemi wrote: post #48
apostacy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited the Philippines recently, and was shocked at how non-neutral it was. ISPs have promotions like "free half an hour of YouTube per day". It is like the nightmare scenario that we in the rest of the world were warned about. Worse, someone told me that in 2012, internet service was way better, but then they realized they could just throttle everyone down and jack the prices up. And I also had to have a Globe an…

The throttling only occurs on 'unlimited' plans. Just paying per GB here, and my mobile data speed peaks generally around 10 to 50 Mbps.

After seeing The Philippines, I don't see how anyone can argue against net neutrality...

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#96

Post by wyclif »

shriphani wrote: post #59
endisukaj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most first-world ubermensch spend filling and productive days doing menial tasks for a living wage. I'm surprised how prejudicial and borderline racist comments like this are upvoted here.

I'm from a developing country with strong family ties to my country of origin (I am not white). Systemic efficiency is really high in the west. Almost top quality in successful countries like Singapore. A trip to some of the not so successful countries in Asia and Africa and it is an eye-opener how much is taken for granted in a rich society.

Yeah, I think he misunderstood your top-level comment in the thread. I'm in the Philippines and I understood exactly what you are saying even though it might sound negative to woke, politically-correct Western ears. There is a lot I take for granted because I happen to have a USA passport (same could be said for someone from Canada, UK, western Europe, AUS, NZ, etc).

The biggest among these things is infrastructure. In a lot of places in the developing world, it just isn't there. And if it is there, it's a fairly slapdash, ad hoc affair. Probably patched together from whatever they could find. No real professional urban planning, either. Likely to be incredibly compromised by political corruption and therefore working only some of the time, since contracts are given to the local warlord's cronies and sycophants.

Look at the power grid in the Philippines. If you live anywhere in the provinces, you'll experience constant "brownouts" where the power is redirected or there is no failover capacity. And without that, of course, there is no internet connectivity...

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#97

Post by wyclif »

kochikame wrote: post #56
awakeasleep wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by 'world full of BS'? Is it like, people trapped waiting in line for government services? Or something else?

Paying bribes, sitting in traffic, waiting for people who never show up, having the people above you just start knocking out walls or something, being swindled out of wages...

"Filipino Time" or even "Mañana Time" where you either can never plan for something to start at an exact time and have to wait around, or you show up for an appointment only to find that the people you're supposed to meet/help/interview didn't bother.

Re: Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

#98

Post by edpichler »

xedeon wrote: post #74
edpichler wrote: post #73

After observations, I have a theory that the poorest and boring places are potentially the ones that most use the Internet. The lack of activities makes people look for cheap entertainment and the Internet is full of it. This happens in small cities of Brazil. When the city doesn't have parks and outdoor activities, people stay at games and on the Internet, because there aren't activities to do, and get hooked. A rep…

I was borned and raised in the Philippines and visit there frequently. I wouldn't call it "boring". In fact far from it.. Heck, I would trade living there (currently in the U.S.) if it wasn't for the lack of high paying tech jobs for all of the outdoor and aquatic activities that are closely within reach after a relatively short drive.

I am sorry, but you did not get the point. Do all small cities of Philippines have aquatic activities and parks and outdoor activities? Why people are trading it to stay on the Internet?

PS: I am not saying that the Philippines is not good. I am saying that the Internet is cheap entertainment and fills a gap in places where you do not have entertainment.

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