Slashdot Mirror
Broadband's Unintended Consequences
Makarand writes "BBC News is
reporting on the result of a long term study
conducted to find how ordinary people and small businesses in and around London and Leeds used broadband. They
found
that broadband was actually slowing down user interaction with
the Net as they are no longer afraid of spending
too much time online anymore. People did not really care about the speed at which they could download from the Net. Broadband's
selling points- like speed and the capacity to be always-on, were something
that the average person did not care about."
In other news.. People who are constantly fed say they aren't hungry.
Liberty.
I like it.
I have a $5.95/month 56k unlimited dialup plan, and other than WAITING for huge pictures in my email ("here's ANOTHER 1000KB JPG of my dog d00d!"), and the inability to download ISOs, it's fine.
Yes, I do "scramble" a little more while I'm online, and I've discovered compression for my SSH sessions, but the Net is still quite usable. I get on, I surf for what I want, I get off. I spend less time plugged in, and more time interacting with real people.
I'm debating going back to broadband when my finances improve, but I'm unsure if I will.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
People did not really care about the speed at which they could download from the Net.
Take their broadband away and put them back on a 56k dialup connection again for a few days. I'll bet they'll care. It's not that people don't take about download speeds, its just that broadband users take it for granted after awhile.
Ive always maintained that users dont need the bandwidth of Broadband, like they dont need the latest greatest processor etc. Only benefit to 512K + is downloading large files, which isn't something i, along with the majority of users, spend a lot of time doing.
I'd be happy with 128K, always on, but with the ability to have 'bursts' of say 2MB when i do want to download somthing large.
I dunno about most of the world populous, but I had dialup (all the way back to the GEnie/CompuServe/Prodigy era), then cable for about 6 months as soon as it was available, then I moved to an area with no broadband available. Trust me, it was horrible. No one could call me because I took 3 hours downloading OS updates, I couldn't do much of what I used to like to do - idle on IRC, listen to streamed audio (legal matters aside), download new Linux distros, et cetera. After 2 years of this madness cable finally became available and life has been good again. It's just not good enough for a geek to have dial-up anymore - even with a dedicated phone line.
This story says that people get and use broadband service because they don't use a phone line or get charged per-minute charges.
I'm sure that's fine and dandy in the UK, but here I don't think anyone pays per-minute charges for dial-up and the cost of a second phone line + AOL or MSN about equals the cost of broadband. Hell, broadband is even a little cheaper than that combination where I live.
They say that the big selling point of broadband is that it's always on, but say absolutely nothing to elaborate. Gee, thanks.
They say that most people aren't downloading, so increased download speeds aren't important. Sure, few people download as a majority of their online time, but it's certainly an important factor when people do download.
They end with "broadband doesn't do what it says on the tin." How the hell they got to that conclusion isn't even evident.
I guess the criteria for getting a story on Slashdot is just that it has a fancy headline and is about tech? Even if some idiot n00b wrote it? Even if it's totally wrong? Hell, it doesn't even mention Linux or Open Source. Eesh.
I personally feel that if I had to go to my desktop (muchless turn it on, muchles dial up!) I wouldn't do half the stuff I want to do. I think it really comes down to the interfaces we currently have (big boxes in a side room). It's the physical integration that will increase broadband usage. Once that happens, broadband becomes a necessity.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Hmmmm, so the researchers thought that the fact that broadband had faster download speeds would mean that people would spend less time online? I'm not surprised that the reverse is true and people spend more time online when using broadband than when they had dialup.
With broadband using the 'net isn't as frustrating with all the waiting around so I don't stop out of irritation. I don't have to get off the 'net to keep the phone line free. I also don't have to deal with the annoying modem screech and inevitable busy signals before connecting to the 'net.
Why wouldn't I spend more time online?
In Europe, as well as Japan, phone calls, even for local numbers, are charged by the minute, in constrast to the practice in the US where you get unlimited local calling. Therefore, traditionally, without broadband, dialup Internet users here have been very concientious about the time they spend online. Many studies have shown that this has caused the growth of ecommerce and (more of interest to me) online gaming to be slower in those parts of the world. With broadband, and unlimited usage, it was a quantum leap for many Internet users here in Japan and I'm sure such was the case in England as well, to be able to have UNLIMITED usage. I would say that, compared to the US where broadband was just an evolution in speed, it was, from a marketing standpoint much more of a compelling sell in these countries, because of the UNLIMITED aspect of it, causing people to use/overuse it even more than in the US.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
This story makes no sense. I wish slashdot would stop posting stupid stories just becuase they make some stupid claim.
Same here. I have cable and leave my computer on 24/7, so I find it hard to think of computing *without* an internet connection. Seems impossible to be sitting at a computer but unable to read /., check on my downloads (the reason I got cable in the first place), download the latest version of a program I'm running, or search for something I need to know.
live(free) || die;
People can do so much more with broadband (watch streaming video, download massive amounts of data, browse the web without waiting for pages to load) that their lives are "becoming one" with their web experiences. They rely more and more on the Web to accomplish everyday tasks. While the average geek would find this attractive, this has strong negative conotations for society as a whole.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
That was one of the dumbest things I've ever read. This is the junk they pass for "research" these days?
..." and the fact that they never bother to mention how they came to that conclusion.
Others have mentioned the "...actually slowing down interaction with the net
"People are not doing things that require speed, so that is something of a red herring as a selling point," - What, no one must be surfing then. I know not everyone is downloading warez, but lord knows that BB has been a boom to the pr0n industry.
simply because most users do not leave their computers on. - OK, actually a good point, I'll give them this one.
But until technophobia is overcome, broadband is unlikely to be viewed in this way, said Mr Crabtree. - they never mention how broadband and technophobia are related, at least in terms of broadband vs dialup. Hell, hooking up my dsl/cable modem was simpler than getting my dialup working right.
"Broadband doesn't do what it says on the tin," - What, it doesn't provide faster downloads and instant on service? That's what their advertising isn't it, and isn't that what they (generally) deliver?
I can't believe that news about Alan Kay doesn't make it (or did it and I missed it?) but yet crap like this shows up?!?
Since I supervise the broadband services department of a major cable company in the USA I'll share my opinnion on the matter. Sure unlimited time, and (usually unmetered) broadband may make people a bit slower when browsing the web. However, the difference is that the websites can offer more content, and a richer experience than what would be a considered a resonable download time with a 56k modem. I also double as an ASP/SQL contractor and I have at times forgotten about the bandwidth limitations of our customers (internal and external) who may not be using a broadband pipe. I would think that as more people get broadband html in general will die, we will see more and more FLASH oriented sites (or whatever the latest and greatest technology is at the time.) Not HTML + Flash, but pure Flash and images will move from being jpgs and gifs to PNGs. Yea you can do all this now, but you would be leaving at least 50% in the cold.
as more of a tool for entertainment, selective general news reading and for the apropriation of oss software news and resources. Which means that the speed is what matters most. Going back to dialup would be pure torture. The always on feature does not matter that much although the fact that it is there when I turn on my system and is INSTANTLY accessable is very apealing. /. falls under all 3 of my usage catagories.
It's funny that reading
sparkeyjames
If sense where common everyone would have it.
with broadband, I stay online longer because the experience is less painful. have you seen how huge the average page is at a site like tomshardware? or cnn? or anywhere else? toms front page is 120k, with 250 links and 250 images. (most of which are the same clear gif, but still.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
While the majority of internet users may not care, this article clear left out the people who become all-conumed by broadband (such as myself). Once exposed to a high-speed internet connection, being connected to the internet consumes their life. Rather than the normal Wake-Work-Eat schedule, life becomes more of a Download-Work-Download-Eat-Download cycle. The more you have, the more you want. The more you want, the more you get. The more you get, the more you want, a vivcious cycle that only ends when you can't afford an internet connection, and resort to writing XHTML-CSS on the walls of your cardboard box home.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
Even the most tech inept, computer ignorant people I deal with in my job love broadband. Websites pour in faster. They can download MP3s. What's up with that article? The benefits of broadband are immediately noticeable. I'll agree that "always-on" is no big deal but EVERYONE who tries it loves the speed. People are keenly conscious of time spent waiting, watching an interlaced GIF crawl down their screen while they're waiting to read the text they want.
I'm in the wrong line of work. I would like to get in on the business of getting paid to tell people the obvious.
Charge people by the amount of time they use your service and *shockingly* they'll be quick about it. Give them the service for a flat rate and *surprise* they slow down.
Good:
If you get one of those dial-a-pr0n programs, you can tell instantly, because your modem SHOULDN'T be going.
What a load of hogwash! Everything on the internet requires broadband. Try loading the BBC's home page with dialup. Try looking at the weather channel and seeing a weather map. How about doing some research with google and clicking on 5 different links before you find the information you were after.
I teach my kids that if the result they want doesn't flash up on the screen instantly than the computer or the network or something is too slow!
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Russians, yes, Moscovites, no. Salaries in Moscow are much higher than in other parts of Russia.
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Broadband subscribers use the Internet for significantly more minutes per day than they did when they were dial-up users, and
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High-speed is why they sign up, but always-on is the reason that they rearrange their furniture in order to get the computer out of the back room and into regular "family" space.
Once they get to the point where the PC is in the kitchen or family room, and it's always on, and the Internet connection is just there, the Internet becomes the prefered source of information for almost everything: news, weather, movie listings, encyclopedia articles, etc.