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Now We Have the Internet, But Why Do We Need It?
ReLik writes "BBC News is reporting on a survey carried out on the statistics of internet users in the UK, 'While the battle for digital access is being won, we now face a struggle to convince everyone the net is worth using' said Professor Richard Rose, of the Oxford Internet Institute. It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet, but is there really enough of a reason for everybody to need to? Is the internet suitable for everybody? Will it ever be?"
It's an endless supply of pr0n!
The Internet is a medium, being neither rare nor well done.
Somebody post some hot naked chicks to remind this guy why we need it.
We have to have a way to play Star Wars Galaxies
So what DOES the internet have to offer me? It doesn't cook me dinner, take out the trash, or even clean up its room. Screw this, I'm going outside.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The question is on a website asking us why do we need it.
Well for one, news, second research, third communication, forth freedom of speech, fifth entertainment, sixth education.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Simply put, to give me a job! How could I make money doing web design if there were no web?!
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Some people use TV to watch the Discovery Channel; some use it for MTV.
Some people use the Internet for research, discussion, and news; others use it for warez and porn.
Hey, I could take a screwdriver and deside to poke myself in the eye with it... does that mean we don't need screwdrivers?
Do we need automobiles? How about heart surgery, or any other tool created by humans since the dawn of history.
The internet is a great tool, and just like other tools it's not neccessary, but it improves the quality of life. Of course it not for everyone.
I think that the Internet is needed to offset the damage done by things like television and large newspapers - the "slave mentality" of only taking information in, never sending anything back.
The reason I love slashdot is that even though the editors fuck up every once in a while (don't we all?) someone else is quick to correct it in the comments. Same goes for wikis, usenet and so on. Everyone can chime in.
Sure, it creates a lot of noise, but it's better than the slick, mindkilling flow that comes out of the television.
That governments encourage the use of the net will be their downfall - they can never control it as well as they can control traditional media sources.
It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet, but is there really enough of a reason for everybody to need to? Is the internet suitable for everybody? Will it ever be?"
Everyone should have access to the internet. I know there is a lot of bad things on there, but there is so much more good. Wikipedia, Google, all that stuff; if it weren't for the internet, I'd know practically nothing. It makes research so much easier than driving all the way up to the library, sifting through books and magazines and not even finding the right info.
It allows for fast and easy gathering of information and images, and sharing of all kinds of data (and I don't mean just Kazaa...)
Of course, we don't need the internet, but, we don't really need anything besides food and water, either.
The internet is quick, you can learn about anything at the click of a button, you dont have to spend hours at the library looking through books,
Also you can communicate with complete strangers instantly. You get to communicate with guys like me who can tell you how the internet is useful, but I wont cook your dinner.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Research and communication in general, but here's a breakdown:
Personal research. Never before has it been so easy to find out if it's normal for your testicles to itch periodically. Not just great for sexual stuff either, it really helped me as a teen to understand social norms, and make me feel less abnormal.
Consumer research. I no longer drive to kmart, walmart, target, best buy, circuit city, etc when I want to buy something. I hit their respective websites to price check, feature check, etc.... then go to the store I plan on buying from. Not to mention the benefits of sites like newegg.com.
Communication. Duh. Email is awsome, so long as you can manage the spam. Instant Messaging is awsome. Internet(email/www/IM) to cell phone (sms) is awsome.
Resource sharing. Via the Internet, work and school I have instant access to countless various Unix/Linux computers and windows boxes. Usually I just leave my work up on a VNC server on a unix box and connect to it from wherever.
I can certainly imagine life without the net (and it's nice to try it sometimes)... but for computer use, I definitelly feel naked without it.
no comment
Google.
... handwringing about their "usefulness" doesn't exactly excite me as an important philosophical point.
Exchanging email with family.
Finding recipes.
Reading people's websites.
C'mon, "who needs the Internet?" is a silly question. The Internet is tremendously useful now (and offers lots of "unproductive" stuff, too -- quotes because the line between productive and unproductive is a mostly useless, fuzzy gray line not worth respecting in the way it's usually used) and will be more and more later on. People survived without it, just like you would survive without any of the foods you like best, or without recorded music, or without being able to read
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Look at the claims of SCO. If we didn't have the internet, or as quickly available a framework of information gathering, we couldn't all see for ourselves the veracity (or lack of it) of SCO's claims against linux. They paste some code they claim is infringing? We go find the true source of the code within minutes. Not days or weeks, but minutes. Then we can post articles that say "This is the truth" and anyone reading can verify what we say IS true.
The irony is that the Internet was built on the back of Unix, and the internet is what will be SCOs undoing LALL!!
Yeah, who needs that?
Several years ago, demand for broadband was basically driven by demand for pornography -- just like the demand for early VCRs.
Pornography is like the space program, we love to have it, it's hard to justify, and sometimes there are spinoff benefits for everyone not involved in it.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Look at the graph. 100% of students use the Internet. Just wait a generation and everyone will be online all the time. Once you start down the internet path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
I guess I *am* new around here, because I figured more people here would understand that the b2b uses of the 'net will make all the consumer-level stuff seem like a speck, a blip on the radar, miniscule and insignificant. A million dollars will be spent linking enterprises for every thousand dollars spent by consumers.
If you're only looking at web pages, you're missing 75% of the traffic that traverses the Internet today.
Intelligent Life on Earth
I see this all the time - "the internet is for losers" "I dont need the Internet" "The internet is for sad lonely people" - people saying those things simply illustrate their ignorance.
For starters I've observed that almost all the people who say those things when they say "internet" actually mean "web", and furthermore are basing all of that on the sites that they have seen or heard about. These people also typically do not read much I've noticed.
Secondly they dont equate email with the Internet.
Its like the people who say that computers are "useless" and "boring" then you point out to them that they use computers every time they pick up a phone or turn on the TV.
To say that one does not need the Internet is the same as saying that one does not need communication.
Information at our fingertips.
That information can be of almost any type or of any form.
Want to read about the mercury space program, or see the latest pictures of nebulae? Go search for it. In the old days you could have headed to the library and look for this stuff, but they would be unlikely to have Hubble photos released this morning.
You think your Aunt Tellie has Diabetes? Go search for the symptoms... and support groups too. In the old days tis was a trip to the library, a local clinic, or you had to wait for a doctor's appointment
Need to find out if someone is selling a 4 barrel carbeurator for your 1974 Chevy Impalla?
If your local shop doesn't have it, Go search on Ebay or another sales site. If not, maybe do a directory search of auto parts stores in the city next door. In the old days, you were SOL until your local shop got the part
Hey, there's a new Rush album and DVD coming out. Cool. Head over to their website and see if there's a clip or some photos.In the old days you were lucky to hear the guy on the radio announce that Rush was releasing a record..or did a week ago
This is all information that can now be obtained in a matter of minutes.
That's what the net gives us, instant information and knowledge.
p/g
Huh?
...and his proposal to give free computers to the poor.
I remember this township in South Africa that got this big box of computers for their school. Only problem was the electrification project hadn't even begun and there was only one working telephone.
I'm sure at the time they were very disappointed at not having the needed power and DSL line to connect to JenniCam.com, despite not having a proper sewage system, water purification or lights. Maybe they could have run an extension cord to the McDonald's three miles down the street (no joke, how messed up is that?).
During those few weeks, it struck me how utterly useless the PC was without Net access. I couldn't get security fixes or any other software without actually buying it on CD via mail order or at a store. I couldn't check news, sports, music or computer-related sites whenever I liked and I certainly couldn't e-mail anyone with it (and who sends hand-written letters nowadays?). BTW, if you point out to the average person in the UK that CDs and DVDs cost up to a third less online than they do in UK stores, I'm sure they'd rush to get online :-)
The Internet itself has never been anything more than a communications tool to me. A very useful one, I grant you, but still just a tool. If, for whatever reason, the entire 'net evaporated tomorrow, it would mean only minor changes in the way I handle my life and side business. Some examples:
--Word processors and laser printers work quite well without the presence of E-mail. I would simply start using postal mail more than I do now.
--Web site? An interesting toy, but is it something I REALLY cannot live without? I don't think so! I would find other ways to advertise my side business. There are enough cheap print mediums specific to my chosen field that I think I could afford a couple of small, well-placed ads.
--FTP? Handy, but hardly indispensable. Before the advent of the 'net, manufacturers of electronic and computer equipment would maintain dial-up bulletin board systems containing docs, drivers, and other such goodies. I'd simply start using them again.
What do all three of the above have in common? One word: COMMUNICATION. What does one need to know to be an effective communicator? Good writing and speaking skills, and the ability to THINK CAREFULLY about what you're writing or saying to your intended recipient(s).
No one "needs" the Internet to develop such skills. What is needed is a lot more focus on teaching such things in the school system, as well as the skills of critical and analytical thinking.
Cliff Stoll has already written extensively on this same topic (I.E., does anyone really need the Internet). Check out his books 'Silicon Snake Oil' and 'High-Tech Heretic.'
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
The internet has provided a crucial service-- it has prevented many a "Kirk vs. Picard" debate from coming to blows, merely by ensuring the participants are separated from each other. And if the internet didn't exist, what would we do with all those Pentiums that help to speed it up?
Finally, if we didn't have it, I'd have to go outside once in a while. And interact with real people! And someone could mug me, take my wallet, and use the information in there to impersonate me and open up credit accounts in my name. When I'm sitting at home on the internet, those kinds of things can't happen. I-- oops, hold on. It seems AOL has lost my account and credit card information, AGAIN! I'll finish this post in a sec, as soon as I fill out the form on the webpage they directed me to.
BRB...
~Philly
We've only had the Internet since 1969 and the World Wide Web since 1993. Together, they are still fledgling technologies.
Imagine what the Internet could be used for in the future. The Semantic Web or something like it is set to revolutionalize the Internet of the future. Imagine being able to organise and sort information based on the qualaties - instead of quantaties - of the information (See Microsoft's qualatative search). The position the Internet is in today is that most of the information contained in it is quantative in nature, it is stored in a manner that reflects machine organization of information. Qualative information on the other hand is much more useful for performing searches and organizing information, it allows the retrieval of information to be based on attributes rather than specific-word-matches. Going back to the Microsoft search link, using qualatative information as the criteria of the search you could search for a base attribute of "cars" and refine the search using arbitrary attributes such as "sleek form", and "red". In this example, a web page that held information about "Ferrari's" would be included in the "car's" search results even if it did not explicitly contain the word "car" as part of it's web page text - in the semantic web XML markup, "car" would be one of it's attributes.
Shh.
What kind of a dumb question is this? Maybe I should RTFA but the premise boggles my mind. Maybe I'm jaded because I spend so much time in front of a computer with a full time internet connection, but FWIW the Internet is MY FRIEND! I need to look something up, GOOGLE! I need to buy something, FROOGLE/PRICEWATCH/ETC! I need to talk to people EMAIL/IM/IRC/ECHOLINK! I mean, WTF? If it wasn't for greedy nearsighted corporations and governments we could already have broadband in everybodies home and not have to fuck around with archaic technology like telephones and fax machines and phone books and magazines and newspapers. Or music CDs and DVDs. All that shit could be consolidated into one resource conserving blinky blinky brain box and a phat internet connection. But NOOOOOO we've got to lobby congress to BAN FILE SHARING AND WEB SITE COPYING! AND GOD FORBID YOU SHOULD MAKE A PHONE CALL WITHOUT PAYING THE PHONE COMPANY SOMETHING FOR IT!!!! HURRRR INTERNET BAD!! NAPSTER BAD!!!! DURRRR!!!!
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
If you use the internet for passive information consumption, you are getting maybe 5% of its true value.
You don't really absorb information by reading an srticle; the best learning experiences involve interaction and feedback. This is why teachers still exists, even though most information has been available in books for a long time. The internet provides a way to extend and accelerate your network of friends beyond what would ordinarily be physically possible. In a way, snail-mail could do this, but the process of searching out like-minded individuals and communicating usefully was impractical.
On the internet you can talk with a dozen people who may each have 1/12th of a solution. You can communicate with text, images, and sound. Publishing your solution for others to use is incredibly easy.
It's also a giant retail store, surplus store, garage sale, and swap meet. Just this week I needed a specialized high-voltage supply for an older industrial flat-panel display. There was no way I was going to find one locally. I simply posted my query to the appropriate Usenet group, and in one day I had someone ask me for a photo of the supply, because they might have one in a box in the attic. I already have the power supply and it works. It might have taken me months to find one any other way.
The internet is pretty easy to abuse, and just once I'd like to get my hands on the punk who put out this last email worm. It's probably not possible, but I wish there was a way to find a balance between anonymity and accountability.
...
Seriously - anyone asking these questions who really doesn't have an idea what the answers are hasn't taken enough time to learn from history, nor has much of an imagination!
The Internet is, quite simply, an entirely new form of mass communications. Arguments about the "Net being too centered around Americans to be very useful for " are invalid. *Anyone* can publish his/her own web pages once he/she is online! If the Internet currently offers nothing for you, then all you need is enough motivation to *create* some content that IS useful to you.
Perhaps too many of us have gotten used to all the passive forms of mass media (television, newspapers, magazines, radio) where the "end user" sits down and digests whatever the publisher/content creator chooses to feed you?
The Internet makes *everyone* a potential publisher with the ability to reach the entire world at minimal cost (practically free in many cases!). Write fluent Japanese and think there aren't enough sites in Japanese? Make some! Can't find a discussion board covering political issues in Zaire? Maybe you'll be the first to offer one to the masses?
Tell me again why this seems to be of little use to citizens of a country?
While this may sound like a luxury, throughout human history "free time" has been an indicator of wealth. Those who have to spend all of their time on day to day tasks have less time for leisure. Those who have mechanisms (servants, for example) at hand to take care of the myriad little tasks that pop up in daily life therefore have more time to spend doing whatever they like.
The Internet shortens the amount of time we have to spend on arranging the minutiae of life, and provides the *option* to spend more of our time on pursuits that we find enjoyable. How people spend that extra time (by working that much harder, by watching more TV, by going on a hike, etc.) is up to the individual. But if the duty of a representative government is to help improve the quality of its citizens' lives, then a robust Internet infrastructure is something governments should be pursuing.
The above points don't even touch on the *potential* productivity gains possible through true integration of the Internet into the fabric of business and government.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Friction matters! Or, put another way, enough quantitative change becomes qualitative change. (That those two are a dichotomy instead of two ends of a continuum is a persistent fallacy.)
The Internet may, strictly speaking, not make anything possible that wasn't possible before. So what? Neither did telephones, automobiles, or even writing. People were talking to each other before telephones. People were moving around before automobiles. People were communication information to each other, even across great time spans, before there was writing.
To diminish the Internet as much as I am diminishing telephones, automobiles, and writing in the previous paragraph is as naive as it is in those cases. By making something easier, more people do it, more often, to more benefit to all.
I find when my Internet dies, the least tolerable thing to me is that I loose Google, which isn't a public library but sure does help me find information now. Which has in turn increased the quality of my own writing as I can support things better.
Would we have free software without the Internet? Probably, but it would be a mere shadow of what we have now, because the harder it is to communicate, the more likely the project won't form at all. Hell, would we be having this discussion without the Internet, and would it be anywhere near as large or as comprehensive?
Boo hoo, there's no "soundbite" for the Internet, therefore it must be useless. Bah!
Almost anything (but not everything) can be found on the Internet. Sometimes more info about us that we wanted to make public. A lot of forums and groups are submitted to search engines and indexed.
Also companys are offering our information for sale, for $100USD I can buy my complete credit, criminal, medical, and court history from many different services. I can even buy a SSN and other information by providing a name, address, phone number, and the money. Big Brother lives, apparently and is selling our information.
If it wasn't for the Internet, the Windows Worms wouldn't spread so fast. But then they also wouldn't be detected so fast either. As opposed to sneakernet which used floppy disks to exchange files and info. That spread viruses slower.
I agree, some people shouldn't have Internet access, and others abuse it. Phishing is a very bad scam where someone spoofs an email from a company and claims the user has to reactivate their account by entering personal info into an email form. This includes bank account numbers, SSN, credit card numbers, address, phone numbers, mother's maidnen name, etc. All the info goes to the Phisher's web site and he/she can use it to steal the account and steal the identity of the victim. Not everyone falls for it, but those that do get ripped off and lose access to their accounts.
Nigerian Bank scams is another thing that ticks me off, pretending to be someone else and then asking for bank account numbers to deposit millions of dollars into and instead cleaning those bank accounts out.
Then all the Script-Kiddies and Kiddie Porn make matters worse. They should lose Internet access for doing those things. Too bad hardly anyone enforces that unless they get caught and go to jail for it.
I've had people steal my identity online by creating bogus accounts and putting my real information on it. I had Yahoo remove the post someone made using my real name and phone number, and I hope they have disabled the accounts they used. They put bogus info about me on those accounts that was just not true and is offensive to me. I also had people do this to me on Kuro5hin and other places. They usually get a slap on the wrist for doing that.
What we need is an Internet Police force and a set of rules for them to enforce. Everyone must follow those rules, or risk losing their Internet access. This has not yet been done, but needs to be done badly.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
>> ... It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet...
I didn't know anyone was asking that question, which is based on a doubtful premise.
But, the Internet is just a big network. By itself, it is empty. The real question is this:
Is the content made available by the Internet worth it?
My answer:
Content created by "old" media and made available via the net is worth it. E.g., having on-demand access to the best news reports around the globe is very much worth it.
But, content created by "new" born-after-the-Net media is largely useless, consisting of silly and hopeless attempts to mimic other media and with polished spins on old-fashioned bulletin boards.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It sorta seems ironic that the government is promiting internet usage, because IMHO the the most overwhelming beneficial purpose is to bypass obsolete and bad government.
Be it unethical copyright imposition, overbearing controlls on finances and money, censorship, or myrad of other obselete rules from anything to gambling to free anonymous speech. It seems to me that the internet is the best bet to bypass restrictions imposed by poor governinment the world over.
We need the internet so we can discuss about whether we really need the internet.
"Why do we need the Internet?" isn't a simple question anymore. There are many many different answers to that question depending on who it's put to.
There are many more uses than there used to be. There are many more users and as a result there are many more useful resources and many more bits of useless cruft.
Sometimes it's easy to let our technical biases make us yearn for the "good old days" when the frontier town wasn't so cluttered up with "city folk."
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."
People need food
People need cean water
People need shelter
People don't *need* the Internet.
It would be something for all these project to wire third world countries to remember - the Internet is great fun and all, but I don't think someone watching their child face malnutrition would find they need it quite as much as a good meal.
The potential for the Internet to bypass corporate control of politically-sensitive information is the killer app of the Internet. This includes e-mail, mail-lists, personal www pages, special interest www pages, blogs, and especially the massive collection of small contributions for political candidates that will represent the ordinary citizen (hint: http://www.deanforamerica.com).
There are those who want to learn and do throughout their lives. They want to be something other than their 40 hour a week job. For those people the internet is useful. Just now, I needed to find out how to set up a bridge on a mandolin. My local library _might_ have a book on it, but the libary is closed today. But I found what I needed.
Those who just want to watch TV don't need the internet.
Slashdot!
I don't have a sig.
TV and phones revolutionized the world. After WW2 the world shrank more and more, until now we're more likely to be aware of problems arising in other countries BEFORE the residents there.
The Internet is a revolution, because it allows new groups to form spanning the entire globe. People will discuss and spread new ideas that would never reach critical mass before. Slashdot is just one example of many. Believe me, out of all the noise, there is something revolutionary going on with the Internet. People are getting to REALLY KNOW eachother across the globe. This is unprecedented in our known history!
Getting more people on the 'net isn't the problem - the problem is making it user-friendly enough to appeal to those people. The more people who have access to the internet, more information can be shared, and society will progress. Chances are there are Einsteins out there who never got to touch a book, much less a computer. You give them access to about all the information available to human beings (the internet), and the rest is history.
So has the internet had a chance to shape society? Not yet
You seem to be confusing "totally dominating" and "shaping". Did radio and telephone shape society? Mail still exists. Did TV shape society? Radio still exists.
The internet has not replaced everything, but it has significantly altered many aspects of our society. It has vastly changed the nature of communication (heard of email? IM? A few people use them). It has changed the way we get information (could you get instant answers to very detailed, very obscure questions before the internet? No, because as good as reference librarians are, they don't have the sheer scope of details that Google can provide), the way we shop (Amazon? Ebay?), the way buisiness provide information (How often do you call a chain store vs. going to their website for price information, or to get location/hours), the way we get around (Mapquest)... the list goes on and on. The fact that most of these things are household words is evidence that it has, in fact, shaped our society. Not everyone has email, but almost everyone knows what it is.
I have to laugh at your assertion that the automobile is "vital for life", but that the internet has not shaped society. The automobile allows people to get together more quickly, get what they want more quickly, and generally make the country smaller, and less fragmented into isolated pieces. What does that remind me of? Oh right: the Internet.
The internet is "just another form of media delivery" the same way automobiles are "just another form of people delivery".
Yesterday a friend of mine was in town and wanted to hang out with me, so she had her boyfriend IM me and give me the phone number where i could reach her.
I realized that i hadn't been to the club we were going to meet at in quite awhile and wasn't sure i remembered how to get there, so i did a search on the name and got the address.
Then i went to mapquest and printed out directions.
Then i IMed my girlfriend to tell her i was going to be leaving work a little early and heading off to the club, so we needed to make the nightly call earlier than usual.
Then of coruse there are the more usual activites of checking up on news, paying bills, reading reviews of the newest games, chatting with friends, looking up random tidbits of information, etc.
Most of that stuff could technically be done without the net, given the necessary other resources, but the net sure made it a lot easier and more convenient.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Humans have a natural thirst for knowledge and new experiences, on all levels, the internet is full of shared information, thus, why people crave for it, why they need it. it's information.
Because I can't get laid and I need something to do with my evenings.
I live in a third world country that is slowly gaining access to the Internet. We've really only had "significant" access since about 2000. (Incidentally, I was educated in the first world and cut my teeth on the Net as far back as 1994.) I currently do all my business and correspondence with international companies using the net. All my local clients do the same. The net is not just a matter of exchange of ideas for the sake of exchanging ideas. The net allows for the promotion of ideas that lead to business. In fact, I would say that quite a bit of business is coming into my country because of the net. Also, quite a bit of business is being generated because of the net throughout the rest of the world that might not have occurred without the net. So, to question its usefulness represents a lack of comprehension of how far the net has penetrated into the everyday lives of people not only on the intellectual level but also on the practical level.
With the Internet, I've:
- Gotten movie listings in a flash
- Obtained accurate driving directions
- Connected with women quickly and efficiently
- Found new clients for my business
- Avoided bad products and found great ones
by reading online reviews written by hoi polloi
- Purchased computer parts for a fraction of
their retail price
- Sold crap I didn't need to raise a bit of cash
- Looked up symptoms I've felt to see which
illnesses they mapped to
- Chatted with a locksmith who talked me through
swapping out the doorknobs in my apartment
- Tracked down and ordered countless hard to find
books and movies I would have searched for
countless additional years for.
Oh yeah, like it's really a tool in search of a job.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.