Slashdot Mirror
Many Americans Still Don't Have Home Net Access
Weather Storm wrote in with a story about those who see no need for home net access. Surprisingly, it's not the cost that is a barrier to entry. Instead, most say they don't see the value of having a net connection at home. "A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a new survey. Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months."
In my immediate family, 1 out of 5 of our 'households' doesn't have internet access because he doesn't care, 'he can get stuff done at work'.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This is about right. Cable TV hit about 60% market penetration by household in the US years ago, and has been stuck there since. That's probably about where Internet penetration will end up.
US broadband penetration is up to 80% of US Internet users. Some other countries are higher, but they're mostly countries which are either very crowded or very cold.
28 million Americans live below the poverty level. That means they cannot meet their basic needs; food, clothing, shelter. THAT IS POVERTY. No, its not as bad as many places in the world, but IT IS BAD.
You can be "below the poverty line" and have a DVD recorder, digital cable, fast broadband and a reasonably new computer...how do I know?
Um, I have something called a mirror?
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
If one cannot put 2000 calories (on average) in one's belly every day that is poverty. I've met many such people. I can introduce you to them if you think they don't exist. Straw man, fallacy of proof by example. No one said they don't exist.
There are 28 million such people in the USA. Show me where the US Census Bureau measured caloric intake.
But to say there is NO poverty in the USA is just fucking stupid and heartless. To claim that anyone said there was no poverty when no one said any such thing is even fucking stupider.
And yes asshole I have personally witnessed worse poverty in Asia. And yes asshole I do something about it. I have personally donated nearly $100,000 to Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders. My will leaves everything to those two organizations, which I hope will be at least a two or three million dollars when I am done. I am an personal investor and my personal philosophy is to live simply so that I can give that amount of money to organizations that tend to the world's poorest. So go fuck yourself. Your saintly self-righteousness is quite impressive. You are obviously a better person than all the rest of us. Good job.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Because, you know, every single ISP in the US has that clause in their contract.