Slashdot Mirror
Online Population now Half Billion
mattvd writes "According to CNN, the number of people with Web access at home by the end of 2001 was 498 million." Not surprisingly, Asia is growing the fastest. It's amazing
that in only 10 years or so, the net has exploded so far, so fast, and now touches 10% of the earths population.
But 10% seems like so little. As John "Maddog" Hall says, that just means that 5 billion people haven't choosen their operating system yet.
...And, in related news, half of the Online Population still believe that "the Internet" and "AOL" are synonymous (the same half, incidentally, who thought 'The Net' was a great film).
Most students in the cities have email and access the net quite regularly, if only for gaming or chat through these cyber-cafes and not at home. Also gives privacy
And once the government legalises VoIP there is definitely going to be a huge boom in the use of the cyber-cafes.
I am pretty sure that this must be the case in most developing economies. Of course like this article says it needs to become a productivity tool.
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
For a little perspective, check out the brochure from the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference 2002. A hopeful note, according to that link: "Africa now has more than twice as many main telephone connections as Tokyo and 85 percent of today's world population share 45 percent of all telephone lines (see Figure 1). In comparison, in 1984, 90 percent of the world's people used only ten percent of all telephone lines."
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Let's just hope there's no Slashdot-Asia planned for the near future. That would REALLY take the Slashdot effect to a new level....
Erm, there is dude. Check it out, its japanese.
When we get chinese slashdot, then we really start frigging worrying.
Here is the PDF from Nielsen. It contains more data than the CNN story.
500 million people certainly is a lot, and the industry as a whole has quite a bit to brag about (that much growth in only 10 years is phenominal.) However, there are a lot of the things the industry should be ashamed of, too. Usability seems to have come a long way in the last few years, but the best thing to ever happen to personal computing in terms of usability, the introduction of the GUI-based PC to the masses, will be the celebrating it's 20th birthday in 2004. 20 years and there is still a market for 400 page manuals on How To Use Microsoft Windows selling in Barnes and Nobles. How many 400 page manuals do you see selling on how to operate your microwave or your alarm clock? Your TV? How about how to send snail mail or take/develop photos? Sure PC's are complicated machines, sure the PC can do a lot more than a microwave... but does Jane Doe Grandma care? Not really, she just wants to see pictures of her grandchildren on that live hundreds miles of away, and she wants them on Christmas morning as they open their gifts. How likely is she to spend hours trying to learn how to buy a computer, plug in the 7 different wires, figure out how to dial up to a service provider, learn how to launch and use her email client, and load up the attached pictures in her photo-editing software. Not likely. It's not that she or the billions of other people on this planet that are not connected aren't capable of learning, it's that it's just not worth it to them. Face it: using a PC takes a time investment of several hours _just_ to do basic tasks, and all these people want to do is send email/pictures/video to their families, maybe read the news, and be done with it. What other home appliance (since that's what the PC is and should be to these people) have you seen that takes 2 minutes to boot up? How about that you have to push 30+ buttons to operate (how many keyboard presses & mouse clicks does it take to do what Jane Doe Grandma wants?). This all sounds pretty trivial to us geeks because we're used to pressing THOUSANDS of buttons a day to get what we want done, but we are a minority. To the 5.5 billion other people on this planet: it just seems too complicated. Have there been attempts at bridging the gap between layman and machine? Of course, but most have failed miserably. Email appliances were clunky, ugly, and still unbelievably hard to use. Windows XP still has the same complicated GUI that has been around for more 7 years (just with bigger, brighter, more obxnoxious buttons). Does it look easier? Sure, I guess. Still takes hundreds of mouse clicks to read email/news. My TV takes three to get CNN.
Its about preserving their culture, about improving their own economy, thats why they are beginning to avoid Microsoft,
You dont know much about China do you? Culture is everything, at least to the older generation.
There is no culture in the USA besides capitalism,
China sees us as cultureless and they dont want to end up like us. They like the technology of the internet but they dont like our culture and dont want to expose their youth to it.
How can you improve an economy without learning about capitalism? You have forgotten about communism?
It doenst benifit China in ANY way whatsoever to use our Internet, it makes more sense for them to create a seperate internet.
So tell me what the Chinese government has in mind, please no "Evil Communist" crap either, i want logical reasons.
In the usa, Oppression was about Capitalism and making money, it was for a reason, Censorship was about making money and maintaining power.
The Chinese see us as their biggest threat, their greatest competitor, for them to join us in the internet, and fall down and bow before aol and microsoft, you must be joking.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Take note that untill recently, having the internet meant having a piece of copper strung to your house. Because most countries have not had the massive copper build out that is seen in the united states, getting internet was not possible. that is what makes some of the wireless technologies so interesting. For example, Kuwait has phone lines to only 15% of residences. Every one has a mobile phone though. To a person in kuwait, placing a call means calling a person, not a location. Internet cafes are extremely popular, satisfying demand for an internet that has no infrastructure. Which is what makes 802.11b/a and other wireless methods so interesting. I am guessing that there are as many people in the world, with dollars to spend, that the providers of wireless internet access will call customers, as currently use copper to access the internet. However, untill it is cheaper to set up a wireless internet connection than buy a similar length of copper, acceptance will obviously be poor.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Cheers,
-j.