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Govt Says: Internet Is Popular
michaeld writes "The U.S. Dept of Commerce reports that more than half of the nation is now online. In
September 2001, 143 million Americans (54%
of population) were using the Internet -- an
increase of 26 million in thirteen months. 2 million more go online each month. Between August 2000 and September 2001, residential
use of high-speed, broadband service doubled--from about
4 to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20
percent of Internet users. ZDNet has commentary as does Reuters, while the government has the Full report."
We are some 80% in .se that has used the internet
and some 60% that does it on a regular basis.
Did I tell you we have digital cellnetworks and use
sms ALOT. etc. Been a while since the US was in the techno-fronteir?
This was not a flamebait. This was just to pointout
how utterly uninteresting statistics like that is.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
...the online advertising revenue model collapsed, and the total content (fresh, updated content) has imploded to a fraction of what it was 2 years ago, with many sites that were vibrant not placeholders or shells.
Knowing how quickly our elected representatives recognise and take advantage of new technologies, how long before we get campaign ads as pop-under and flash ads, or spam? I realize there was some smearing going on in the last presidential primaries, via email, but I expect a bigger role for internet mediums in the upcoming presidential election, perhaps this years congressional elections. I can barely stand this stuff on the TV and radio, the deluge so relentless, how long before I'm hounded on the 'net, too?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Conclusive proof that the internet is becoming all pervasive. It would also be nice, now, if the government could help facilitate future growth via funded expansion of shared infrastructure. Broadband access is apparently become less readily available and more costly, right at a time when demand for access is increasing. Just as there is a federal highway system, it would be nice to see a federally funded mega-sized inter-state backbone that would ensure bandwidth needs are met in future. The auto industry was the bellweather of the american economy for 50-75 years, but that industry was not responsible for funding the deployment of roads and highways. Similarly, software companies and internet services would greatly benefit from a shared, open infrastructure that ensures all Americans have access. Of course, I'm a Canadian so what do I know? ;)
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
More people=more money=more infrastructure. Of course the old timers have been proclaiming "DEATH OF THE INTERNET! STORY AT 11" for years based on the same suppositions as yours. Having said that, pardoxically with the more people, the free content has largely dried up: You can't stream those Adcritic ads any more, and download sites have clamped shut or imposed limits, and just the general amount of broadband accessible content has diminished. I'd wager that the average Internet user downloads significantly less today than they did 2 years ago.
No, 46% of Americans do not use the internet. The report is about usage, not access.
1. Making internet access available to those in the remaining 46% who cannot afford but wish to have access.
I'd wager that a large portion of the 46% do have access to the internet, if they want it--many public libraries now offer free internet access for their patrons. For those who don't currently have access even at their local public libraries, the public library is an ideal place to get them access.
Perhaps a large campaign to recycle used computers and 56k modems and then donate them along with free monthly access to poor people would be a good start.
Donating them to public libraries which currently don't offer internet access would probably be a more efficient use.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
This is good to know. This is a number that you need if you're thinking about Doing Something On The Internet - half the US can *possibly* get to you. This is not trivial info, though I doubt we had to wait for the Gummint to tell us this.
Frinstance - you want to open a bookstore. 50% of the people you want to sell to can click into your store. 100% of the people can head thru the door of a meatspace store. Your call. Jeff? Jeff? Anyone? Anyone?
If you hang around techie sites long enough, you'd think everyone who matters has it, and anyone who doesn't is a mouthbreathing fool. T'ain't so. Apparently upwards of 100 million first-world citizens get along just nicely, thank you very much without direct access to the net.
Though I get paid to deal with it on an hourly basis, I can easily see going back to 1970's time by removing my cell, laptop, fax, and voicemail, and pretty much not only living a full life and probably getting more of the 'real' life things done too.
Sounds vaguely luddite, but it's really only a reality check.
Of course, if I weren't online, I'd be muttering all this rant to the cat. Sad. Especially for the poor cat.
And remember - there are more houses with televisions than telephones, cuz you have to pay for the phone once it's in - and ditto^2 online access. Anyone have a good reason why an internet box of any sort would ever move up from third place?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
admittedly phones aren't a basic right currently. I think they should be. When I was 15, my parents got a divorce. My father cut the phone line and it took a couple of days to get the service started again. In that time, our garage caught fire. The closest neighbor I had was a mile away. That is when I thought phones should be a basic right. Maybe not extra features, but I needed to call 911 and couldn't.
Maybe not now but I can see a day when the same thing with the internet will need to happen. Communication should be a basic right. All of our services revolve around it. (i.e. fire deptment) If you base society around a certain technology then that technology becomes a basic right.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Probably the best solution is a two-tiered pricing scheme in which light users pay a lower monthly fee but are guaranteed a speed of, say, 768kbps down and in which heavy users (say, over 2 gigs a month) pay a much higher fee.
2Gb per month is heavy usage? I push more data than this in a day, admittedly I've got a T3 running straight into a 100Mb/s LAN, but none the less if "working from home" is ever to be practical for me I'd need the same sort of bandwidth. I don't really regard any of the current broadband offerings to be really that, especially since most of them can't guarantee quality of service.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
You don't have to be a mechanic to drive a car, but it is helpful when driving a car to know how the car operates.
When learning to drive a vehicle, people usually don't flap their hands and refuse to learn anything about how it works, claiming "oh, I'm just no good with cars," and then, after driving it into a telephone pole, exclaim "but it should have worked! Why didn't it to what I want?" Yet I see this kind of philosophy all the time when it comes to computers.
Also, people who own vehicles usually don't drive it for years, refusing to put in gasoline or oil, or have any routine maintenance performed on it, even when danger signs start cropping up, then express amazement and disgust at Bill Gates when the thing finally breaks. Yet, again, I see people treat their computers like this. These aren't stupid people, either; these were the Ph.Ds I worked with at my school.
You don't have to be a musician to enjoy music; however, it does help to know how to operate a CD player. And it doesn't matter how idiot-proof it is, some people just do not have what it takes.
I know plenty of people who aren't "technically inclined" who function perfectly well with their computers and their Eudora or AOL. I also know people who aren't "technically inclined" who can't resize their browser window without calling the help desk -- every time. Yet, they refuse to learn. This isn't elitist, it's just the way things are.
. In addition, 46% of Americans do not yet have access to the internet. While with most forms of technology, not everyone wants to get online, I'd wager that a fair portion of that 46% would like to learn how.
.doc and .xls formats as the basis for document interchange
.DOC and .XLS, .PDF, then you're in a pretty distinct minority, one that's vocal but seen as a bunch of raving fanatics by the general public.
.DOC files is futile because THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A .DOC FILE IS. Trying to get people to do a "Save As" and selecting "Rich Text Format" is so foreign to most Windows users it's never going to happen.
.DOC and .PDF files. Just accept that battle as lost and put your energies to fight on a different front.
Look at the report before making comments. On Page 89 of the report, of those who do not have internet at home, 53% of those them "Don't Want It". 25% claimed "Too Expensive". Which comes down to about 12.5% of the US cannot afford the internet in their homes- 25% do not want it. That's a surprise to me.
Do not use Microsoft
Like it or not, they are the defacto standards for files. Forcing the masses to change is not going to happen. If you can't open
Another point. Maybe you haven't looked at a default Windows installation, but users don't see file extensions. They only see "My Filename", not "My Filename.DOC". Telling them not to use
Yes, push open source where we have openings. But don't beat your head against the wall concerning
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.