Slashdot Mirror
2/3 of Americans Without Broadband Don't Want It
Ant writes in with news that won't be welcomed by the incoming US administration as it tries to expand the availability of broadband Internet service. A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates, as noted by Ars Technica, that two-thirds of Americans without broadband don't want it. "...when we look at the overall reasons why Americans don't have broadband, availability isn't the biggest barrier. Neither is price. Those two, combined, only account for one-third of Americans without broadband. Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value."
Of course they want it. They just don't want to pay scary fees for it.
It's Old Century Ignorance talking. By 2013 this topic won't exist.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Remember there are still plenty of people in this country who don't own (and don't want to own) a computer or any other type of internet-connected device. They aren't necessarily opposed to computers, they just don't care to own one. I know plenty of people who fit that demographic, and even if you gave them broadband for free they still wouldn't be interested.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I know I wanted broadband when I didn't have it. Now I live across town where I have it.
Those who don't want it probably have no clue what the difference is, or don't have internet anyway and simply don't care about it.
You're nothing; like me.
first, it is sure that their children will want it. leave that aside, in every country governments and corporations are moving most of the services online. even news, media too. there will come a time when broadband internet connectivity will be a necessity for many things. better to make preparations for the day to come than sit back and relax.
Read radical news here
Who doesn't want broadband? Old people, that's who.
They don't want the Internet. They want to knit and watch the Price is Right. Who are we to condemn them for that?
Some people on this site make an awful lot of noise about not watching TV. What's wrong with that? It's all about personal choice.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I think the main issue is people don't want to pay for it. They're happy in their cozy little niches and don't want to look to the wider world and notice the USA is falling behind. Head in the sand, and all that. Why pay to keep up with our economic competitors when that money can be used to raise another child?
Perhaps I'm being cynical.
Blar.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But they got it.
...was in the "Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value" camp until he started receiving many rather large pictures and short home movies (usually taken from a digital camera) of his grand kids. He was also attempting to upload pictures he'd taken to the family Gallery (it runs Gallery), but it took so long to do (he has a 7+ MP camera, so the pictures were rather large). After finally biting the bullet and getting *the cheapest* "broadband" he could find (I think it was 128k down / 64k up), within a couple weeks he had upgraded to a mid-level broadband package (somewhere around 1.5mb down/256(or more) up) and was finding himself doing so much more with it. I personally believe the final straw that made him actually upgrade his package was the ability to see/talk to his middle son (one of my two younger brothers) while he was/is deployed in Iraq (on his third tour now, I believe).
There are some people that just aren't going to want it, no matter what you show them can be done with it, but I think a large percentage of those 2/3 that "don't perceive the value" simply haven't had anyone explain/show them what value they could be getting.
bork bork bork!
Ok, honestly, who really needs it?...
The real _legal_ use of broadband is very limited.
P2P for all!!!
My Uncle living in Iowa has wanted to get broadband for years. He lives on a farm just outside a town with a population of about 300. The town just lost their only gas-station (damaged in a flood and the owners decided it wasn't worth fixing) and I don't believe the town has broadband available either. So, he's stuck with dial-up for probably a while.
My grandparents in Nebraska live in another small town, they have high speed internet available in their area via WiFi with REALLY big antennas.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
if you are grandma and all you are doing is checking your email and looing at cnn.com, you don't need anything above 56kbps
the problem is, grandma is missing out on future services, the march of progress
youtube straddles this issue: its not exactly impossible over 56kbps, but obviously video services are changing and evolving, and you need a larger pipe for that. and youtube is already a service grandma wants and needs, and grandma appreciates
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value. 19 percent of dial-up users, for example, say that "nothing" would get them to upgrade, not even lower prices.
So you can have a worse product that costs more, or a cheaper product that works better. And you want the crap?
There's something strange going on. Either 19% of dial-up users are morons, or... well, I don't know. What might be a reasonable argument for not wanting better-and-cheaper?
Old people cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress just because they don't like the new ideas. We need to cut costs, and doing things over a network is a great way to cut costs.
Once broadband becomes a requirement for the free hand-out health car the oldsters get, you'll see them demanding it.
I didn't want the war foisted upon us by lying politicians and the gullible and cowardly older generation, but here it is. Guess what, 'greatest generation', now we want to spend tax money on something that is GOOD for the nation.
Blar.
I remember back when we had lie 8 channels on TV and that was with Cable. If you had all three networks and PBS what else did you need?
Then I heard about people in NY that had like 100 channels. A lot of people just don't see why they need broadband.
Netflix? They watch Movies on TV they don't watch them on their computer.
Download music? Adults just don't buy that much music. I bought my step dad an MP3 player. It was too hard for him to rip the CDs. He uses the internet to send email. He still uses the weather channel for weather and he has a minor in meteorology. I want internet everywhere and always and super fast.
I think that it will just take time and devices that are not PC to get everybody on line.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This just in!
People who want broadband, end up having it.
People who don't want broadband, end up not having it.
More on this as it develops...
Count me out of text services. All I get there is "where ru" and spam.
People use the "they are deprived of it" "they deserve it" "its a right" more often than not because they want something themselves.
It is far easier to decry we don't have enough availability when you reference others - you can assuage your guilt that way.
Look, relatives of mine live on a farm. They care about the weather and look up current prices on feed and end products they sell. They have no need of anything but dial up and its done at the dark of the night because that is when they are done outside. To them its a tool. The problem with too many people is they can't tell a tool from entertainment anymore... they cannot tell work from addiction
Honestly I could live just fine without the net and cell phones, I grew up in the age when they weren't being rammed down our throats by everyone who wants to make a buck and that is what this availability is really about - businesses need to get into our wallets and someone decided that this will be the new means of doing so, trouble is we aren't playing along hence we must be ignorant.
yeah, whatever. I have high speed internet, my relatives do not, we are both happy and I would not change them and they would not change me. No ignorance, just acceptance that other people enjoy their lives just the way they are and aren't missing out on anything
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Suppose it were only some $12 a month like Dialup is now. They'd like it. For example there's a huge knitting club that meets in our local bookstore. I have heard them talk about downloading knitting patterns. It would take them 12 seconds instead of 38 minutes each.
It's a P-word thing. (Paradigm).
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Just because your into something i.e. gerbiling doesn't mean the rest of us are. If people don't want a service or product why should it be an issue to anyone but the supplier?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I bet that number would change greatly they they just tried it. Also, if everyone could have it for free. Certainly not everyone would want it but I can guarantee that it would be a hell of a lot more than 1/3rd.
And to think, I just ordered my second broadband connection today.
The people I know who don't want internet are all older folks who are very set in their ways. They don't want to do anything new and that includes the internet. They don't really know what the internet is and they don't want to know. You could give them free broadband and a free computer and they still wouldn't use it.
I read the internet for the articles.
I now just make do with my iPhone and a fat connection at work. I first canceled Comcast because their prices are simply too high. They were charging me $180/mo for HD television and Internet. To cut out the television would have still been almost $70/mo.
RCN, a competitor in my town, offered Internet service only for $35/mo, so I tried them. They simply made up stuff to charge me with. No television? Well, you have television service now! Pay up. Call them and have it turned off? Sure ... only to have it turned back on again, with yet more bills for service I never ordered. I finally canceled, only to be forced to call the MA Department of Public Utilities to force the company to stop sending me bills for a service that was now canceled. Getting service through the phone tree was impossible. I really had to go to my state regulator.
Verizon: DSL service. Great. Except that it would regularly die for days on end. And Verizon could not be bothered to actually FIX the service they were charging me for. After over a week of downtime, I canceled. They're still sending me bills for service I canceled months ago. I'm currently dealing with the state regulator over their bullshit too.
I'm done with giving these assholes my money.
Let's hope the new administration sets a new regulator tone. Because the last administration let those guys fuck their customers over good and hard.
Most of group X are fine with being in group X, do not want to move to group Y.
pfft, if the "Pew Internet & American Life Project" knew anything about the Internet it would be called the "Pewpewpew Internet & American Life Project"
And they don't really want any personal computers, they just don't see what good they are.
Right after that, 2030 sent an e-mail, which read "rofl no broadband? can u still even watch tv without it in ur time?"
You just got troll'd!
I'm not opposed to paying but the problem I have is the bundle.
I get comcast interent but I don't get comcast cable tv. So they CHARGE Me $19 extra. I Could almost get cable tv for close to "free" (just $10 more for both).
Likewise for my mom whose on a fixed income but needs the comforts of phone, TV and the uncomplicated reliability of non-dailup internet, I can't find a scheme that lets me use skype.
for example, if I want to use sky I still need to have a DSL connection which means paying for basic phone service from Qwest (even though with skype we don't need that).
I want her to have a basic pay-as-you go cell phone for safety in her car, but there's no point in paying for that when, give that I'm paying Qwest for a land line, I might was well get their bundled Wireless.
And so it goes.
How come I can't just get ala carte DSL. How come I can't just get cable internet.
that is without the extra fees for not buying the bundle.
anyone know how to just buy DSL without a phone?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Here's the report on broadband. %55 percent are on broadband, and 10% are on dial-up. Also noted:
So for many,it's not an disdain for a fast connection, but just a lack of internet in general for the internet.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Do you guys seriously think that some Asian country that touts 90% coverage means 90% of residents access the Internet through broadband? Surely, they also have more than 10% old grandparents who don't use computers. Their "coverage" is defined as "if they wanted to, they could get it" as opposed to the actual subscription rate. It's just a different definition of coverage, in terms of which I think the US has a pretty good coverage already (although it could always be cheaper and faster).
I once had a signature.
The arstechnica article and the Slashdot summary do not make it clear that the 2/3 figure includes people who don't use the Internet at all. For dial-up users, price/availability accounts for about 1/2 of the people who don't have broadband.
You're always going to have people who don't adopt a new technology. These people shouldn't be used to not improve the technology for the rest of us.
We will all be, eventually, old people. And we wont want to pay for, nor we will be interested in, that crappy holistic multiversic quantinet our kids will happily plug in their brains.
I say leave the elders alone and let them buy their paper and sit at the diner and chat amongst friends over a cup of joe.
The net, contrary to all that idiocy, does not automatically make you or anyone smarter, better or more productive. Hey, Ive seen pretty good arguments -Giovanni Sartori- that point in the other direction for some cases, and what I see being done to language in SMS messages by youngsters makes me want to send them all to linguistic concentration camps.
Why this strange neurosis on trying to get everyone to facebook their ass?
I dont really get social networks actually, I think they are the worst to ever happen to privacy and will eventually cost us individual freedom.
Now youtube is another story. I like that one and their pr0n equivalents (better).
So there: people that dont want broadband perhaps like real life better and im not sure thats bad at all.
NO SIG
With the caveat that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data, my own experience with my family has been as follows. Several years ago, my parents lived in a rural-ish community in northern Nevada (Elko, to be exact -- a mining and ranching community of some 30-40 thousand people). Because television reception was pretty good (they got all of the major networks over the air, and in some cases got the same network from two different cities), they didn't bother with cable. Thus, their only internet option was dial up. So, they signed up for some local dial up service that cost a few bucks a month.
About three years ago, they moved to an even smaller community in northern Arizona (Holbrook, less than 10,000 people). At this point, they decided to get cable (for about the first time in their lives), but, because they had free long distance, decided to keep paying for dial up service out of Elko. My father had high speed access at the community college where he taught, and my mother didn't think she cared. However, phone service in their part of town seems to be somewhat unreliable, so last summer, my mother finally caved, and added internet service to their cable plan. My mother was shocked at how much she liked the higher speed access. Suddenly, she could send large attachments via email, and it didn't take forever and a day to load any random webpage. Now there is no way that she would ever go back.
Thus, in at least one instance, someone didn't want broadband access, but, when given such access, found it vital. I would imagine that there is a significant portion of people who currently use dial up and claim that they don't want broadband access who really have no idea what they are missing, and, if they were to upgrade from their current service, would never want to go back.
Rhapsody in Numbers
broadband's back. Want I should fetch the shotgun?"
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
and what percentage of the other 2/3 simply don't know what they are missing? It's like asking the population of 1930s America if they wanted highways - many probably wouldn't have seen the need for it. Many didn't have one in their area (PA turnpike and a few others around). Eisenhower, as a young officer, took part of a cross country convoy, to assess national roads, around the early 1920s IIRC, and it took them nearly 50 days to get coast to coast, that with seeing the German Autobahn in action up close is what lead him to spearhead the interstate system as President.
Infrastructure is almost always good and pays off, like the Hoover Dam + others Depression era projects are still serving us well today. But it's really tough for people with little experience with it to imagine the uses for it. They've been confined to stuff like dial-up for so long, that the concept of the internet as a medium for only text emails, sprinkled with a few static pictures and the like is hard to break for good reason.
Holy crap people, not everyone *needs* broadband. Watching retarded YouTube videos and other crap isn't an essential part of life. If your only use for the Internet is email and browsing Wikipedia you can get by just fine with dialup. Personally, I'm a bandwidth addict, but my mom couldn't care less. She's happy with email and reading the occasional news story. America isn't going to collapse because these people don't have broadband.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
most other countries have a higher broadband adoption ratio with better speeds
and lower prices, so if the majority of the people living in the US without
broadband don't want cheaper/better performing internet then something must
be really really wrong.
I would be guessing the lack of competition, throttling, being treated like dirt
and then spending a (comparatively) huge amount of money for the privilege
has probably scared those people off.
It can be a great communications tool - when you filter out the trillions of shit messages.
It a great source for news without having to listen to the overpaid talking heads - after you filter out the millions of lies, half-truths, agendas, and propaganda.
And the internet a is a great way to suck away valuable time on shit. For example, online message boards. This thread will offer me absolutely nothing to enrich my life, but here I am. I should do something a little more productive with my time.
Broadband can be addicting. With it, you can more bandwidth hogging content which, for the most part, is crap. Again, here I am.
I think the people who don't want it are wise enough to know that it is not right for them or for their families.
My father is in his 60s, and lives on a farm in rural PA. When I was growing up he had zero interest in computers. He didn't even want one until he found out, maybe 5 years ago now, that he could contact his old army buddies on it. At the time, broadband wasn't available in his area, but I set him up with a computer with a modem, and he messed with it and tinkered with it, and, indeed, completely screwed it up a few time, but he did learn how to use it moderately well.
Maybe 2 years ago they finally get DSL in his area. He didn't want it. Zero interest. He already had his modem and could contact his army buddies, and that was fine. But whenever he needed to download Windows patches it took literally overnight. He had sort of set into using the internet in certain ways, and he was satisfied.
That was until he stayed with me in the city, where I have Comcast, and he got to use the internet in completely new ways. THEN he wanted, and now uses, DSL. He looks at Youtube. He uses Utorrent. He is glad he made the switch.
tldr; People don't want to switch because they don't actually know what they are missing.
And of course, porn.
Larry Flint saves the day.
No, no, no, you've got it wrong. They just don't know about all the free porn they can get with broadband. No more lurking outside Bobbi Sue's trailer tonight!
...since all you can do with it is read Slashdot all day anyway.
But there are those who could care less about computers, internet, and god knows what else. If they made the internet a public utility like phones and things it might pick up but they'd still need a device to connect.
It would be interesting if down the road the internet does become a public utility and they actually issue internet devices like phone companies provided phones. The netbook market would be huge for this.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
You're being incredibly cynical and your argument is clouded by your cynicism.
People do not make a conscious decision to spurn world events in favor of having children. People have children and find that the immediateness of their care takes precedence over things like monitoring world economic competition.
That being said people generally are more comfortable hiding from events and paying attention to their niche. If you want to change this than you need to empower people and make them feel like they can really change the way things are going.
I for one have concrete ideas for the shape of this country and how things should run, but it only breeds frustration because they fall on deaf ears.
If you have it you don't need it. If you need it, you don't have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don't need less of it. You need it to get it. And you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started, which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first place, do you? You can share it, sure. You can even stockpile it if you like. But you can't fake it. Wanting it. Needing it. Wishing for it. The point is, if you've never had any of it, ever, people just seem to know.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
how much of the 2/3 do not use the internet at all?
let's just assume 1/3 of all americans do not use the internet. that would mean that 1/2 of all internet users want broadband. statistics can be warped into saying whatever the creator wants.
i am one of the underserved who can not get broadband (neither cable or DSL) and i want to see change.
(I always post anonymously from work)
My parents are European immigrants, my mum was born in 1939, just before the start of the war, my dad in 1941, during the war.
They both grew up with post-war shortages, and as a result they're naturally frugal. My dad uses the internet for email, forums and light web surfing, all on dial-up. Why? Because it's cheaper.
Here in Vancouver, dial up is about $10 per month, broadband is about $30 per month. To my dad's thinking, that's an extra $240 per year that he'd rather have in his pocket. If he needs broadband for something like Google earth he just strolls down to the library and surfs for free. He's retired, after all.
The push to expand broadband is to extend it where it is not available. There are HUGE areas of the country with No choice in the matter.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I have broadband (of sorts). My city provides free WiFi. Its good enough for my uses (downloading/uploading large documents and VoIP for long distance). I have a POTS line with the lowest price possible. No long distance (that's what VoIP and/or my cell phone are for). The phone line is for emergencies and as a back-up to the WiFi. I have rabbit ears for my TV sets The digital reception is great and the quality much better than what cable or satellite offers. Besides, I don't need more than a dozen channels.
Both my cable company (Comcast) and my phone company (Verizon FiOS) offer '3 in one' packages of TV/phone/broadband. But the added value just doesn't compute. The additional broadband speeds would be nice, but I don't need TV with 500 channels and phone with big feature packages. So, I figure the broadband would be economical at a price point of about $25/month. But that's not available from either provider. Worse yet, you can't get FiOS broadband only and keep your basic phone service. Verizon insists on moving its FiOS customers to the unregulated system.
So, I'm one of those 'statistics'. Its a lack of value, but if there was a suitable price, I'd buy it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Mark Goldston
First off I looked at the patterns, and they can be download over dialup in just 1-2 minutes. Hardly a long time.
Second: Can someone knit this for my wife? Va-va-voom!
http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer04/images/allusionDET2.jpg
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Watching retarded YouTube videos and other crap isn't an essential part of life.
Nor is reading books, or watching movies. YouTube is, however, part of our culture. Not "essential", but certainly not as useless as you're suggesting.
And that's assuming everything on YouTube is "crap" according to you -- not true, seems whitehouse.gov is using it as well these days.
If your only use for the Internet is email and browsing Wikipedia you can get by just fine with dialup.
Even just Wikipedia is improved by having images load instantly, rather than line by line. Yet the article points to 19 percent of dialup users who would never upgrade, no matter what the price.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It took us forever to get mother-in-law on broadband. Her computer is a cast-off donated by one of her sons which I've upgraded a couple of times. Thing is, she only uses it for email. Why would you need broadband for that? She finally converted when the local cable company offered her a package that essentially included it for free compared to the combined cost of phone/tv/dialup.
Parenthetically, I think this is the only way you're going to convert casual users -- by bundling broadband in with services considered more important.
Having broadband at her house helps me when our family visits, because I can work from there if necessary (I'm on call essentially 24/7) instead of driving down to the local coffee shop to use their wifi. But for her, the value is that her Outlook Express mailbox fills up in 2 seconds instead of 12. Given her computer takes 4 1/2 minutes to boot, the speed of fetching her email is down in the noise.
I think most of the unwashed public just can't see any value. (other than looking at pr0n...) This seems odd to us geeks, but it's demonstrably true -- demonstrable if you know any non-geeks. Unless you're streaming video, the higher bandwidth is barely perceptible. Who cares if a page loads in 1/8 of a second instead of 1/2 of a second? Well, I do, (and there seems to be unnecessary latency on my 20/5 FIOS line) but I observe (without completely understanding) that normal people do not.
If you want broadband saturation, you need a Killer App. Until very recently, there wasn't any legitimate non-geek use for it. Now you can catch up on TV episodes and watch old programs as streaming video. This is a good start, but it isn't as cool to the rank and file as you might think. Fred and Ethyl are used to watching TV on their TV, and having to crouch over a 17 inch monitor and poke webpage buttons with a mouse is not part of their paradigm. (There are solutions for all of this, but they're not well integrated -- forget it unless you know a geek.)
The Netflix box, Apple TV, are a good start -- they're actually *more* convenient than driving to Blockbuster, rather than *less* convenient. (I tried to explain torrents to my mom once. Yeah, right...) But the hard fact is, Fred and Ethyl are still more likely to watch whatever is on cable at the time their butts happen to be on the couch. It's just the way it is.
In this response, I've completely ignored the huge amount of non-entertainment information available on the internet, because I think the great majority largely ignores it also. If an online news service has a million unique hits, that's not much in a country of 300+M people. I suspect that the great majority still wants someone attractive-looking to tell them what's important in 43 minutes minus commercials. This concerns me, because it tends to further stratify the country, but making someone buy a product they don't want and don't think they need is always going to be problematic.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
While a lot of people did well with national infrastructure projects of the past, lets remember that some people did get screwed. There is always someone screwed when the government builds something, and that's why some people hate the government. This grievances are not illegitimate and you need to take the effects of them into account.
For example, let's look at how highways and hoover dam screwed some people.
First off, highways screwed cities. If you can drive anywhere, you don't need the concentration of goods that a city offers, and more so, you allow people to get to work without having to live near it. Essentially this has turned American cities into corporate islands surrounded by ghettos because nobody wants to live in cities but everyone will take the high paying jobs.
Secondly, highways screwed local stores. No national brand could exist without highways to truck goods all over the place. Everyone that bitches about the likes of Walmart, McDonalds and every other chain and laments the death of the local foods in the local store need only look at the highway to see why this took place.
Third, the highways really screwed blacks in America, because usually, in cities, all the overpasses and bridges and what not were all built in black neighborhoods, pretty much destroying the asset base of an already fragile population. New York City is a perfect example of this, and there are many black leaders that curse the name of Moses to this day - and no, not the biblical Moses.
Hoover dam screwed everyone that had local water, or needed the flow from the river downstream of the dam. You go to all this expense to get a good spot downstream and the government shuts you off. Or you go to all this expense to get your own water supply, and the government goes and doles it out to everyone else on the cheap, making your investment worthless.
This is my sig.
AT&T offers "DSL Direct Basic" (768/384) for $19.95 a month (no taxes). Skype for $5.50 a month (near-unlimited US/Canada, plus an incoming number). Already cheaper than a dialtone, let alone a dialtone with even the cheapest dialup provider.
I only got a cell phone 3 years ago and use it less than 30 min a month, it doesn't have a camera, and the only text messages I've sent is "Wrong number" replies. I'm not signed up with myspace/facebook/twitter/whateverelseisthefadthisyear, and abandoned my blog after a few months since I had nothing interesting to say. I don't have satellite/digital cable or and do not own a single HDTV set. I still use a VCR - no TIVO/DVR. I'm satisfied with a $15/month 768kb DSL connection since anything faster would cost at least twice as much in my area. I'm a software engineer, yet by today's standards I would be considered a Luddite.
When you are sitting on five hundred acres of land, have a good well, a good bunch of cattle, and can grow plenty of food. Look, if anything, the northeastern liberal cities are parasites on the south and the west. Cities used to manufacture things to support themselves. Now they are just a bunch of failed banks and homeless people. At least we red staters make something. What do you blue state people make? Nothing. God help you poor welfare dudes if we get all hip to the internet, as we'll take away all your IT work just like we did your manufacturing.
This is my sig.
My father's view is that he has high speed Internet at work.
Therefore, high speed Internet == work
And when he goes home, he doesn't want work (i.e., high speed Internet) following him.
If he wants to do something on the Internet, he'll go into the office.
It isn't that he NEVER wants high speed Internet. It is just that he sees no reason to pay for what work gives him for free (with almost no restrictions). Plus work maintains his PC and gives him all the software for free. It is only 15 minutes away and all his friends are there. e
Home is for TV. He doesn't have TV at work. TV is important.
So, it is a bit generational. I have no TV but must have Internet. He must have TV, but couldn't care about Internet.
"In fact, the only 3 things I want on my cellphone, is voice calling, voice mail, and text services.
I know some people who even consider that to be too much."
Amen. I don't have a cellphone but now that I'm learning to drive and the Mrs. and I are talking about getting a 2nd vehicle I'm thinking about getting one just so that I can make calls home to see if there's anything we need grocery-wise while I'm out etc. I wouldn't want voice mail or texting. I'd probably leave the thing off and just turn it on to make calls home. I realize that's a bit of a double standard (expecting to be able to get attention from home instantly but not wanting others to do so of me), but phones bother me. I don't really want to be permanently connected to the world. I'm just not that much of an attention whore. So the rest of the world can have their phones and their connectivity and I will have my peace and quiet.
Me: We need to get internet mom!
Parents: No. What good is it?
Me: Uhh you can send emails and read news and informational sites online.
Parents: I don't see it being worth it.
* fast forward a year *
Parents: The internet is out call the ISP and ask them how long it'll be down.
--
Me: We should get broadband.
Parents: We don't see any reason for faster internet. This seems perfectly fine to us.
* fast forward a year *
Mom: The internet is really slow! What's wrong with it?
*runs speed test*..... 800kbps.
Me: It's still 20 times faster than dial up. But there must be something wrong at the router.
------
If you don't use the internet you don't understand its value. If you don't use broadband you don't see its value.
This is an educational and experiential problem. You can't explain the every day convenience and power of the internet without personally finding why it's useful for you.
For me it's industry forums and blogs to improve my skillset. It's shopping and IM.
For my mom it's shopping, geneology and email.
For my grandpa it's just email. But he's still on dial up and honestly 'discovering' the internet is very difficult when you have to wait 3 minutes to go somewhere.
Suppose it were only some $12 a month like Dialup is now. They'd like it.
Except they wouldn't. Availability and price concerns, combined, only cover 1/3 of Americans without broadband (per TFS). So no, for the other 2/3, it doesn't matter what the price is, they aren't interested in it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Most folks that are on dial-up plans are in the $20-30/month neighborhood in addition to the cost of the landline phone. The cost for lower-speed broadband connections is in the same neighborhood and often times can be combined on their telephone or cable bill, rather than to a 3rd party company. I can't think of any reason why anyone on one of these plans doesn't switch other than laziness. In the past, I've heard the argument that they didn't "want holes drilled in their walls" to run a new cable (e.g. no CATV outlet near their huge computer enclosure desk). With the advent of WiFi nothing is stoping these folks from setting the Cable modem at any CATV jack and putting up a cheap AP (in fact most companies will sell you the equipment and set it up for free/cheap.)
You'd think that we'd do anything to save time, but there are all kinds of folks (particularly older and/or uneducated) that are willing to do things the tedious, long, hard way rather than be troubled to learn anything new. Everytime I've been in a job in IT and watched employees waste company time doing things inefficently (e.g. doing labels one-at-a-time), I've tried to teach them and if they were completely unwilling to even listen or try it, I go to their supervisor and say "I can make a lot more efficent for your department but he/she is completely unwilling to consider it" and usually they come around or are disciplined if they continue to waste time. Half of the battle is knowing.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Holy crap people, not everyone *needs* broadband. Watching retarded YouTube videos and other crap isn't an essential part of life. If your only use for the Internet is email and browsing Wikipedia you can get by just fine with dialup. Personally, I'm a bandwidth addict, but my mom couldn't care less. She's happy with email and reading the occasional news story. America isn't going to collapse because these people don't have broadband.
It sounds like your mother doesn't actually do anything productive on the internet, and I'm guessing that everyone else, who is/are also adamant about sticking with dial-up, only sees the internet as a "recreational" area.
Having gone without broadband internet at my mother-in-law's for a year, I can't believe how much more time-consuming it is simply getting directions to a restaurant, or its telephone number, or its hours, etc. without using the internet. It's also really good for comparing prices, reviewing products, house-hunting, car-shopping, health-issue troubleshooting (be it you or your pet). The internet is a fantastically useful tool, for which I'd bet that the intertia of slow dialup speeds is preventing the adoption of such perceptions by such people.
The people who have it thinks everybody should have it.
....
The people who don't have it don't really need it as they get by without it just fine.
It's like a validation thing on the side of the haves (I have it because everyone else has it). So if not all people have it it's like then you don't really need it after all and the only reason you do is to "keep up with the jones".
And oh yes I have it mostly due to the fact I work from home and vpn into the office 5 days a week. Plus it's cool to have
Your wife is in to mannequins?
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
Is it because 2/3 of him doesn't want it?
As with most polls and surveys it's all in how the question is posed.
Do these people "not want broadband" or do the "want to not have broadband"? There's a big difference between the two. When you say price isn't a factor, what exactly does that mean?
I can certainly understand people whose priorities simply can't justify $30, $50, or more per month for something that just doesn't interest them. However if that's the case then money is a factor. Even if it's $2-3 per month it's still money.
To say that people "don't want" broadband suggests that it's mere presence in their home would cause them distress even if there were no cost associated.
I wouldn't consider putting a home theatre in my house because I don't have enough interest in movies to justify the substantial cost. If someone installed a home theatre in my living room for free I would be upset because it would impair the decor and functionality of my living room which I'm currently happy with and which is more important to me than movies. If someone added a new home theatre room onto my house for free and I could choose to use it or not without any impact to the rest of my house I'd say "hey thanks" even if I only used it once or twice a year.
On the other hand, if someone installed a sewage treatment plant in a new addition to my house I would be pissed off. I do not want a sewage treatment facility attached to my regardless of whether it's free.
That's the difference between not "wanting" something and "not wanting" something.
Effects aren't caused by free will. People don't have broadband because their leaders don't provide it, not because of free will. When are you humans going to learn your place?
its just like heroin - they best not try it.
This is interesting, actually. I think a lot of it may be poor word-of-mouth. My father lives in a small, rural town of 750 people, goodness knows how far from a DSL node. One of his friends got a DSL line and then complained to Dad how the speed wasn't much different. Ever since, trying to convince Dad to get some kind of broadband solution has been impossible.
Um, no they don't.
A lot of older people,
especially the elderly, have no need or desire for the internet.
Totally disagree. Education is not just for those younger than yourself.
My parents live in another country from myself, and my sister. Plus I'm divorced from my first wife, so they don't get to physically see their grand-children so often. Skype, webcams and chat have really brought the family back together. Plus now my Dad's on the net all the time - has really given him another interest in life. My Mom is now sending emails. They're both over 80, BTW.
Another example - my (current) wife's mother has sadly become rather frail and forgetful, so even though she's only a 15 minute drive away, we've set up webcams in strategic places so we can check she's OK rather than having to drive round there every time she forgets to answer the telephone.
Do you mean to tell me that DEMAND is the largest influence on market share?? Who would have thought? God forbid the government know anything you could learn in Economics 101.
getoffmylawn
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
i can count all there vay to schfifity five.
The US already has more households with broadband than with cable TV. About 20% of the population can barely read, let alone type. Why expect broadband penetration to go much higher.
The countries with higher broadband penetration than the US are all either tiny or very cold. Except for South Korea, where most of the population lives in big apartment buildings.
Time and time again I tried to convert my dial-up friend to (at least) DSL. I even illustrated to him that he pays almost same amount of $ for dial up as he would for some promo dsl package. But he goes in denial. He's still using AOL dial-up. He's afraid to loose his infamous AOL browser and AOL chatrooms, says he loves it and doesn't want nothing else. Strange people.
o_O
The people that I know that are still on dialup in areas where broadband is available would switch except many providers want you to sign a 1 or 2 year contract to get broadband service, sometimes having an early termination clause even if you buy the dsl or cable modem. That's what they are avoiding. With dialup they can cancel at any time.
Every new PC with a fast internet connection is another potential spambot. Knowledgeable people, or people who know knowledgeable people, can take steps to avoid getting pwn3d. The rank and file are at the mercy of, well, everyone, and the ISPs are not helping.
When I heard that mother-in-law had finally gotten cable internet, I asked her how they had set it up... They powered up a vanilla cable modem and connected her Windows PC to the raw internet! I told her to turn off her computer, drove the 3 hours to her house, installed and configured a firewall appliance between her computer and the modem. It was a pain, but scrubbing her computer later would potentially have been a greater pain.
Many ISPs give you a router with some firewall capabilities, but there are many others, especially the cheaper ones, who are just passing out modems without even NAT capability. Imagine another 100 million spambots with broadband. I know, it's your responsibility to keep your own machine secure, but most people will just reboot to catch an IP address and then "hey, look at all the pr0n!".
I would submit that we don't *want* millions of new Joe Sixpacks on the net until we establish that it can be done with reasonable safety.
This is not elitist. It's self-defense.
Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a minute... I have it somewhere. Ah here it is. Consider this: What is our main defense against the pap that talking heads feed us in monolithically owned news services? The internet. What would be a really great way to severely diminish it's usefulness? Cause the creation of the largest botnet in history. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I just built a house in the "sticks" void of ANY broadband (besides satellite), and I would LOVE (affordable) broadband!!! I know many would say, "you should have checked into it BEFORE you built." Well, I did. According to a DSL provider, I would be able to get DSL. Come to find out, I CAN'T! Luckily, my in-laws live two miles away and they can get cable (and DSL)... so, I just have to install a wireless bridge ($800 but free after that).
I am a technology teacher and about a third of my students live in the sticks and can't hook up to broadband.... and yes, they want broadband.
Who did these people survey? -- hill people in Kentucky? As Cletus holds his rotary phone, he yells back to his wife, "Adelle, y'all want dat bawd ban intranet?"
Nor is reading books, or watching movies. YouTube is, however, part of our culture. Not "essential", but certainly not as useless as you're suggesting.
So what is your point? I bet you can find lots of people who don't want to read books, and lots of people who don't want to go to movies. Is that OK with you, or do you want to shove these things down their throat as well? And if you are OK with not consuming movies and books, then why is the internet any different?
They don't want it because they don't understand it. If they knew that broadband would bring them quicker load times, HD video, video communications and more, they'd be all for it. Of course, it's also just a faster path for all of that spyware/adware grandma keeps accumulating on her computer. I say fsck them, wtf do they know, we need better broadband penetration and we need it now. I want FIOS to already be available everywhere, regardless if the morons in the general public don't think they want it.
Smokedot.org
Her first computer was a 486 and, yes, she used AOL. She stayed with AOL dialup for a long time, but now she's got DSL here in the Midwest and at her Winter place in Arizona. No, she doesn't use Myspace or Facebook, but she does a good job keeping in touch by email. She didn't want a computer at first and didn't know what she'd do with it, but I set it up anyway. Once she had it, she loved it.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"It (the first central commercial incandescent electric generating station) provided electricity to one square mile in New York City in 1882. The first day it operated only 52 customers wanted electricity."
ref: http://library.thinkquest.org/6064/history.html
convincing vast majority about useful utility for higher quality of life is not alway about supply and demand or availability of technology.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
I think that's the point of a lot of posts: until you actually use the service(s), you're not going to see their usefulness.
Don't bug them, just ask them how much they are paying for dailup. I paid about $20 a month for dailup for what seems like forever. (It varied from ISP to ISP from $18 to $25.) Now about a year ago we got DSL through our land line provider. Why? Because it cost about $20 a month. O.k. It's been from $20-25, but that's much better than early broadband prices. We tried it, and much of the internet is far more usable now. I sometimes talk with folks at work about this. Far more non-computer people there have had broadband for years now because of the price not the speed. I got it because the price was about the same as dial up and the speed was more than 10x.
I say don't push anyone on this. If they've got dail up, just ask if they even know how much broad band in their area costs. Many will be like me and switch since hey its close to what we are paying now, but higher speeds! ;)
Ant writes in with news that won't be welcomed by the incoming US administration as it tries to expand the availability of Cable TV service. A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates, as noted by Ars Technica, that two-thirds of Americans without Cable TV don't want it. "...when we look at the overall reasons why Americans don't have Cable TV, availability isn't the biggest barrier. Neither is price. Those two, combined, only account for one-third of Americans without Cable TV. Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value."
Wow, not really such a big thing now, is it?
But, lot of people, specially in USA (among developed countries), want happiness through faith.
INTERNET brings anarchy and tons of conflicting information to you. In my opinion, this is why people don't want INTERNET.
Otherwise, think about it! if you are old only way you can keep touch with your smart grandson is through INTERNET - because he is always in the internet.
Anyway, mod me down, this is my observation about things here (like taking oath of office on a bible - what if president is a Jew!)
I disagree strongly. I'm an IT professional and have Dial-Up at home. I can use e-mail and visit most websites, especially with a Squid proxy on my gateway machine. If I really need to download something large, I can do it at work, at a friends or at my Mother-In-Law's apartment .. Or I can leave it to download overnight. If it were very cheap I would probably upgrade (although DSL and Cable are not available where I live) but I'm not missing anything important. I was even on Facebook for awhile (account disabled now) and the Squid proxy kept things nice and snappy.
Second: Can someone knit this for my wife?
She didn't like it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Nope.
I am with the people of the theory that the internet became the last piece of proof that YHVH doesn't literally exist in the classical sense.
Ever notice that if you pray nothing still happens? With Alan Turing and Norbert Wiener on tap to manage His IT, you'd at least get a Prayer Received message in your ear. Log in to view MyMiracles, compare Manger Construction ideas, etc.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Second: Can someone knit this for my wife? Va-va-voom!
We already have, friend, we already have.
My mother in law is part of that 2/3 group. She lives in a farming community 30 minutes outside of Spokane Washington. She uses the internet to check email and do online banking. She rarely web surfs and neither her nor her husband spend very much time on the internet. They currently pay less then $10 a month for the dial-up connection they use. Why should they switch? I do not see any change in their opinions anytime soon and they are not retired yet so I am sure they will be this way for years to come. These are the same people that used a 233mhz PC till a year ago when the motherboard finally died
Satellite is pretty well available, but then, it is shitty and expensive.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Maybe in the past. But pages these days are huge. We have tons of images, flash, and javascript being pulled in from umpteen servers from different companies trying to advertise to us, track us and gawd knows what else. Try using dial up once in a while, the web is near useless unless you get plugins to stop them all. You can forget about getting OS or application updates. No one is going to tie up their phone line for hours, unless it's a 2nd line or a kid when parents are out.
Your mother will change her tune when she understand broadband will allow her do visual chat, especially so when grand-kids are concerned. My mother was the same ;-)
Piece of cake man. When you ask people whether they want broadband Internet, just do it in an online survey. Include a big-ass Flash video of people happily using their broadband.
Something like:
Q1: Do you want broadband? ( ) yes ( ) no
page 2: flash video
Q2: How about now? Do you want broadband now, bitch? ( ) yes ( ) no
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I've tried 1,000 times to get a computer and Internet access for my mom, but she flatly rejects it. She actively doesn't want a computer. It's not because she doesn't know how to use them, but that she put in her years running a mainframe and is utterly burnt out on the subject.
Me: So at work, we have one computer with lots of hard drives and set the other computers to store their users' information on it instead of their own hard drives.
Mom: So your home directories are on NFS?
Me: Are you sure you don't want a computer, maybe a nice Mac?
Mom: No, and quit asking!
...or...
Me: I got a DSL connection.
Mom: Is that fast?
Me: In network terms, it's around 8 megabits.
Mom: So, about 5 T1s?
Me: Not even a little laptop?
Mom: No, and quit asking!
She's not skipping the "Internet revolution" because it's above her head. She's skipping it because she was there when they were building it, she did her time, and now wants to do other stuff.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I have friends who cannot afford some things as nice as mine. If you were to ask them why they don't have a nicer one, they would tell you a reason why they don't want it. People rarely admit that price is the issue, even when it is.
The don't want it because they don't know what it can do. It's the same reason we don't have a good national (or even regional) electric train system. Few people have ever seen one, know that they exist, or have any idea of the benefits.
It's actually closer to 1/3rd of 1/4 of the population.
Roughly 10% of the population if you mash up all of the categories.
I don't see any reason why we should allow 10% of the population stand in the way of the other 90%. 64% of us already have Broad Band (according to the linked "survey") and the other 26% wants it but can't aford it, don't have access to it, or believe that their lifestyle will not allow for it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I know a lot of people who insist something DOES happen when you pray ("God answered my prayer"), and given the choice between upgrading from 50k dialup, and a new car, they'd rather have a car so they can get to church.
And there's nothing wrong with that. The whole purpose of living in a free country is so you can *decide for yourself* instead of having people force you to buy Broadband you don't want. (If you're paying taxes, you're paying for it.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What fraction of this 2/3 already has access to broadband but has rejected it? If the fraction is high, then the 2/3 statistic is obvious pretty much a tautology. The 2/3 includes everyone who *could* subscribe to broadband but rejected it. Meaningless.
The real question is, what fraction of people who CANNOT sign up for broadband also do not want it. I doubt most rural folks don't want better communications technology. I lived in central Illinois for a while and the dial-up Internet community was thriving. It gets pretty damned lonely out on the prairie.
Trust the press to pass along an ambiguity as if it were news...
Randy
2/3 of people without broadband is meaningless. This is not the same population set as the people without access, because it includes all the people with access who choose not to get broadband.
The better question is, what percentage of people without broadband access want it?
878659 - yep its prime.
There are only a few reasons for that. Perceived value, expense, inconvenience, lack of availability. Those are your biggest reasons why. If you read the questions ask, no crap 2/3 the people said they did not want it. I can write a questionaire that guarantees a certain response as well. Each one listed below:
* Perceived Value: Some people don't do that much on the internet. They will never do it. It is a fact. Yes the like emails, and youtube videos, but, they just don't sit around all day doing that sort of thing.
* Expense: My parents are cheap asses. They have loads of cash in the bank, but this is how they keep it. My dad is mad when he has to change his phone service from the $9 a month to $11 service so he can shut it off 6 months out of the year when he does not leave his home, and keep his number. Some people look at every dollar spend as a bad thing, and going from something that works, and is okay which is $10 a month, to something $30 a month, while faster and more desirable, at the end of the day costs $20 more.
* Inconvenience: You have to pay your bills, deal with routers, multiple computers, etc. You need someone willing to help you with all of this. How much time will you spend on the phone when you don't understand it all, and have questions.
* Lack of Availability: Despite all the reasons above, some people want broadband. My parents want to (as long as it is not too expensive, and they can turn it off so they are not paying for it when they are not at home 6 months of the year). No provider is going to cross the channel, bury cable, and get it to their house several miles away from the mainland, just so they can get $25 cable. Satellite is too expensive (remember the previous conditions), and coverage is sometimes spotty where they live.
Everyone has their reasons. I have broadband, my siblings have broadband, and that is great. We justify it by doing other things. MagicJack is my phone system so I don't have to spend a shit ton on the phone as well. I spend very little on cable (and just so I can get a DVR with multiple HD channels). Everyone has their requirements, and they change over time.
Ditto.
And I don't have much use for voicemail either. If I don't want to talk to you, leaving voicemail won't change my mind. If I do, I'll answer the phone....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I know several people that are still on dial-up. The main reason they dont want broadband is that they don't understand the internet in the first place. They just jumped on the dial-up bandwagon in the 90's because it was the cool thing to do. Most people that have dialup are completely clueless as to how the internet works or how they can use it to their advantage. All they want it for is looking at LOLzCat pictures and writing an email to family members about their meaningless life.
In fact, the only 3 things I want on my cellphone, is voice calling, voice mail, and text services.
All of which are subsets of internet access -- after the initial hump of infrastructure upgrades, a portable generic internet device will be able to handle all three better and cheaper. Unless you genuinely care about the implementation details and you really want $1000/MB for text-over-SMS instead of $1/MB for text-over-gprs, then internet access will be to your benefit :-)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Why pay money to "get by"? Does your mom know that she can watch almost any TV show or movie she wants online? Does she know how much smut she's missing? "Just email" isn't enough to buy a computer for; and what she's paying for dialup is probably a rip-off.
I lived for a long time with an outhouse, and whenever I was at friends with a regular bathroom and had to use it I thought it was dirty (going inside in general) and a big waste of water.
lawn > get off
I live in the sticks now and have a regular bathroom, but I still take a leak outside....just because I can.
2/3 of Americans Without Direct Neural Interface Don't Want It
Stop! Dremel time!
Just look at the backwoods of Tennessee in the 1930s: they were four decades behind the rest of the world so-far as electrification and other utilities go, because they didn't want to pay market-rate for building and maintining the infarstructure.
So, along comes the gubment with a wad-o-cash, and creates the TVA. Now, Tennessee is still full of country bumpkins, but they like their cheap electricity. And since they have plenty of electricity to run their cheap PC from Walmart, there's no reason besides cost stopping the internet from getting the same wide usage.
Let the gubment solve this problem once-again during a downturn! We federally subsidize the building of roads, phone and electrical networks in the middle of nowhere, so why not data networks too?
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Dang it. BACK IN MY DAY, we didn't even *have* ones and zeros. We only had zeros! and believe me, they didn't amount to much...
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Many of those probably have had some previous bad experience with technology, others see no need for it, feel too old to figure it out, or whatever. If the cost were something nearer to decent, speed was good, and it were not stuffed with ad-ware and pushed signals which slow things down and TV and telephone service were provided over it, the level of interest would be higher...
But he's still on dial up and honestly 'discovering' the internet is very difficult when you have to wait 3 minutes to go somewhere.
"Where do you want too slow today?" (R)
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Let me rebut a few of the things you mentioned:
First off, highways screwed cities. If you can drive anywhere, you don't need the concentration of goods that a city offers, and more so, you allow people to get to work without having to live near it. Essentially this has turned American cities into corporate islands surrounded by ghettos because nobody wants to live in cities but everyone will take the high paying
This is not the case in Europe. That's because along with highways, Europe developed their public transportation systems as well. What screwed the populace was forcing everyone to use them, and not developing multiple modes of transport. Americans have this idea that everyone should use roads and that's somehow better than public transportation, which happens to be cleaner, cheaper, and safer.
Secondly, highways screwed local stores. No national brand could exist without highways to truck goods all over the place. Everyone that bitches about the likes of Walmart, McDonalds and every other chain and laments the death of the local foods in the local store need only look at the highway to see why this took place.
Same idea as above. With the decentralization of the population and more in suburbs, making it convenient to get what you need in one place became crucial when you had to drive everywhere. What's funny about this is, when I lived in Philadelphia when going to college, I could literally get and do anything I wanted. Out in the suburbs I can go to a walmart and I can't quite get everything I wanted, despite their claim. The items they wish to sell don't garner enough profit margin or are specialty items you can't find in bulk, like crafts or art. I'm stuck with what they want to sell me. The inner city truly has the most variety, followed secondly by remote antique craft-like areas way out in the boonies. The suburbs have the LEAST variety because it's all the same where ever you go.
Philadelphia keeps experiencing a population decrease because the traffic in town is terrible. Philadelphia was designed with narrow streets (it's the oldest major city in the US) and traffic is horrid in town. Our public transportation sucks. Getting around by bike is great, though slightly risky and you can't get to the furthest reaches of town or to the suburbs without a lot of time or a car or a train to that specific destination, which aren't that common. For the sake of the public, if they would try to revamp transportation in the city, perhaps more people would stay and variety would flourish in town.
Third, the highways really screwed blacks in America, because usually, in cities, all the overpasses and bridges and what not were all built in black neighborhoods, pretty much destroying the asset base of an already fragile population. New York City is a perfect example of this, and there are many black leaders that curse the name of Moses to this day - and no, not the biblical Moses.
You are correct on that, but that's not the highway's fault. That's the fault of racist politicians and racism itself. It's also the fault of the contractors trying to do things for the cheapest money possible. The millionaires uptown are going to hire expensive lawyers to uphold the NIMBY principle for themselves, even if it made sense to move them for the sake of the greater good. Big money is also to blame, which is a problem when people are forced out of their houses because it makes someone else a huge amount of money. There are plenty of public works projects that were performed for the good of the money grubbers involved, and not for the good of the people. That's a problem with the system of review not the highway.
Hoover dam screwed everyone that had local water, or needed the flow from the river downstream of the dam. You go to all this expense to get a good spot downstream and the government shuts you off. Or you go to all this expense to get your own water supply, and the government goes and doles it out to everyone else on the cheap, mak
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Heck, my grandparents have broadband (phone-company DSL), and I think my sister & myself use it more when visiting than Grandma does. (I doubt Grandpa even touches their computer much - yeah, maybe we show a loaded webpage to him occassionally) Thing is, he expects that Internet research on anything is instantaneous...
They have Excel (we had an old MS Office 2000 disk around when setting up the machine), and they STILL use paper spreadsheets. I have repeatedly tried evangelizing on this to no avail.
Another person pointing out the age-based attitude differences, I guess.
I 'm only 19, and I even I get pretty stuck in a habit...
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Please stop interfering with the "We know what you want, because we're smart and read Literature" blue-state agenda, thanks.
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
But nobody is forcing them to use the Internet. It's not really parallel to forcing people to consume movies and books. A closer parallel would be building libraries and public broadcasting.
My mom was that way, at least until she discovered digital cameras and such. Downloading a 10MB email from my aunt (who can't figure out how to resize her pictures) takes forever on dialup. It's actually almost manageable on broadband.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Depends on your volume of email, and whether or not you have a need to view non-textual media (or need to view text media on ad-heavy sites and don't have Adblock Plus installed).
You'd be surprised at how image-heavy knitting groups can get. (My mom? Needs broadband. Couldn't get it for a long time because she was just outside of city limits.)
1/3 of Americans are hella old and 1/3 of Americans are hella stupid.
Now someone please reply with a post making fun of my use of the word "hella," and thereby get moderated higher than my post.
-- Boycott Shell
Send your wife over so i can, uh, take measurements.
I wish my mom didn't want broadband, cause then maybe should wouldn't forward crappy chain letters about menopause or Obama being a muslim to my email address.
I don't need no damn horseless carriage. My horse runs just fine.
I don't want internet service on my cellphone. EVEN IF IT WAS FREE, I wouldn't want it.
I said that exact same thing 6 months ago when people I know were touting the iPhone. I was adamant. I now have one and absolutely love it. My co-workers really love to bring that one up all the time.
Not that I'm into pressuring people to get broadband. Just saying.
5) There's no way to use a conventional oven to make Peeps explode.
You haven't tried hard enough [/evil grin]
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Great point.
The classic version is something like "Have you followed through with the cold blooded murder of nice cute little babies named Joey, and eaten them cooked over a light polonaise sauce and marinated for 17 hours until their tender little muscles become moist and juicy?"
Jam enough emotional words into a question and it drags the human cognitive processing system kicking and screaming into irrational byways.
(Nig Sig. It's a fourth cousin of my point.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
bleh that was supposed to be "nice sig"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I don't know if I should be turned on or not by, what shall now be known forever as "grandma-tramp", outfit.
I hate to bring it to you, but if you live in the neck of the woods, you also have less access to libraries and movie theaters.
The choice you make about where you live does affect the infrastructure you have available to you. Is this really surprising?
Don't forget the intercalary reforms in the time periods between the Mayans and today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
My religion is best described here:
http://xkcd.com/505/
Hi AC.
As pointed out elsewhere people are irrationally assuming they have to pay more to get the dialup. That's not the question.
I have no landline. I got what's called a "Dry Loop" for DSL.
After some careful thought, I DOWNGRADED my package after that! I never said I or anyone else needed 4 mbit packages! The question was between pure dialup (which never hit posted speeds anyway) and *any* brand of broadband. I have a little trouble seeing movies on Hulu. Yay. An excuse to microwave something while it rebuffers. But just getting past the random stuff Web 2.0 tries to load seems to require Something-Band.
The correct administration of this question is "We already upgraded it for you, and it's always on. It's no charge - paid by some weird government grant. I'll call you in a month. Tell me then how life is."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Mixing industries creates the mistake here. Cable is not interactive (normally) and requires you to sit there staring at things. Broadband can go all kinds of places you might not think of, because the questionnaire was slanted as pointed out elswhere.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
There's a new field sometimes called "emergence" etc. We do things in the paradigm of possibility. The one brave time your mother in law probably clicked on a movie clip link and found it basically impossible quickly snuffed out any interest she *might* have had. From then on "she didn't bother with that". Give someone the capability to do something new and exciting, then see how the playing field is.
I never really traveled much because I'd get lost which was no fun. I just got a GPS, so now I'll travel like crazy from the repressed energies unleashing decades of squashed hopes.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Not buy. Free.
Damn, that hidden assumption is getting everyone.
The broadband is free, because this is a conceptual question of service. Really the answer is almost forced by economics as "yes we want it" unless someone comes up with an awesome exception like how their VPN doesn't work on same-carrier lines because of hidden blocks in consumer level plans or something.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Phone rings.
John Doe: Hello
Pew: Hi. I'm calling to ask if you'd like broadband.
John: What? A broad with a band?
Pew: No, sir. Internet access.
John: Enter knits? What are you taking about?
Pew: Broadband internet access.
John: A band made up of broads who knit?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I don't want internet service on my cellphone. EVEN IF IT WAS FREE, I wouldn't want it. In fact, the only 3 things I want on my cellphone, is voice calling, voice mail, and text services.
Funny, a while ago I'd have said the same thing about a camera, web access and GPS in my phone. These days, I appreciate the value of having a camera (even a fairly poor one) with me at all times; I love having web access so I can read BBC News, Slashdot, Facebook, BBC Sport, and anything else at any time; I certainly value the GPS and Google Maps, particularly when I got lost driving back from business on the other side of the country.
Sometimes people don't realise how useful things can be until they get to use them. You might find internet service on your phone more useful than you think, and people might just as well find Broadband more useful than they think.
Seriously. My grandpa was perfectly content with his dialup for years. He knew "broadband" was faster but it cost a lot more money and he could deal with dialup. He had a pattern. He'd start the computer and fire up the email client then go make breakfast or lunch depending on the time of day. By the time he was done, his email attachments were usually downloaded. He'd read his messages, set a few pictures to forward, reply with some new ones of his own, then hit the send/receive button and go do something for a while. Come back in an hour or so and it was done. Then he'd check his weather reports. Each map could take 5+ minutes to download but he could wait.
Then his neighbor got a cablemodem. He and the neighbor got to talking about it and my grandpa went over to check it out. His weather sites loaded in seconds instead of minutes. News sites. Investment sites. Everything was so fast! He called me up. "So I imagine my email will be faster, too? No more waiting half an hour for a few pictures to download? And those updates you install when you visit?"
So, the next time I was there, we took a trip to the cable company's office and picked up a cablemodem. And, maybe a week after that, he had me order him a new computer 'cause the Celery/333 had become the bottleneck. And it's totally worth the extra money to him. He would probably pay a hundred bucks a month now that he knows that going from dialup to cable is like going from peeking through the keyhole of a library to having the doors thrown open.
I just wish cable companies would offer something like 512/128 for $10-15/month. That's all that many people need. Heck, I had 384/128 at a cheap rate for years and it was fine for me.
The only people that care about this are a) the people making money via internet services and b) internet addicts. The real reason for wiring up the schools is to create the next batch of internet addicts. Give the kids good teachers and books and they'll be fine. Right now, the internet is just used as a game or babysitter at best. At worst, it's used to avoid learning real skills. Why learn to spell when you can just type it into google's search bar, get the correct spelling, and then copy it into whatever you're doing. Why learn to do real research when you can let something else do it for you?
In other (much clearer, IMHO) words: By this point, almost everyone who wants broadband already has it.
Cheers,
Ari
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
How odd, I have like 100's of channels, and rarely watch more than 8.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Pretty much any cellphone manufactured recently will work for 911 services ONLY, even if it isn't provisioned for service from the carrier it's branded with. If your mom or other relative wants a cell phone ONLY for emergency usage in their car or elsewhere, you can find piles of them in most pawn shops for $20-30 dollars. You're better off buying one of the newer models capable of running GPS Java or Brew programs, as when activated in E911 mode can provide acccuracy to 10 meters. Again, per FCC mandate, these services must work even if the phone is de-activated for voice or data services from the carrier that sold it.
Here is another cool knitting project: http://whywouldyouknitthat.blogspot.com/2008/09/awesomely-funny-and-adding-labels.html
That 30 seconds means you simply don't check
something with Google or Wikipedia.
With a tolerably fast always-on connection,
you look up whatever question pops into your mind.
This is educational and generally useful.
This ability probably makes the difference
between leaving your computer off or on.
If you've never experienced this ability, you
don't imagine how useful it would be. You just
ignore your own spontaneous desires for more info.
Of course, not everyone needs broadband, however, everyone should have access to it if they so desired. I say this because widespread broadband across the US improves our infrastructure which has many benefits.
For the people bitching about all the technology coming along with cell phones.....guys, in a few years cell phones will be the new laptop. When laptops were coming out, were you pissed then? Hell no, that is non-sense. Improving technology and peoples ability to access it is not a bad thing. If you only want a cell phone that calls people get one of those piece of shit jitterbug phones, you actually have to call customer service to put phone number in your damn phone! What a piece of shit. Could you imagine waiting on the line for 5 minutes so some jerk off can add a phone number to your number list? People who complain about these new technologies should either get on the bandwagon or shut the fuck up and let the rest of us enjoy the benefits of technology. Sure some people are fine with dial-up, however, they should have the ability to get broadband if they desired. Reading some of these remarks one has to wonder how intelligent some of these /.'ers are. I'm amazed that people would argue against broadband, the benefits are just to widespread. I just see no negative side effects of nationwide broadband.
I had internet on my Blackjack II for 6 months. I recently dropped it because I never used it.
Same goes for the onboard GPS.
Not everyone shares the geek's adolescent obsession with porn.
While 99% of US adults can "read and write", such a figure includes people who struggle with books like The Cat and the Hat.
Only 1/6 of US adults are literate in a meaningful way. By this I mean that they can read a couple essays and then write up a comparison of viewpoint or similar. I don't mean anything fancy either, with subtle issues and big words.
Most people are ashamed of their reading ability. (rightly so!) Most people try to hide this, and will even deny it to people researching the problem. One must actually test people to see that illiteracy is the norm.
If you can't enjoy the reading, there isn't much reason for a decent internet connection. You could see some video. (if you find it) You could have the connection for aspirational reasons, just like having a McMansion or Hummer H2. That's about it. You'd lose some of the ability to proudly (yes, proudly!) proclaim that you don't know anything about computers. You'd even have to pay money. Obviously, fast internet service is not a good thing.
instead of having people force you to buy Broadband you don't want. (If you're paying taxes, you're paying for it.)
So if some nutty religious group decided that they didn't want the government to pay for plumbing in your city any more ("We don't want our taxes spent on that, you should poop in the woods like God intended!"), would you be fine with having to install a septic pump?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
So these are the people who voted for McCain. This explains everything!
... and then they built the supercollider.
Is that OK with you, or do you want to shove these things down their throat as well?
No one's forcing you to use them. Nor will anyone force you to use the Internet, except for essential communication.
They are, however, already forcing you to pay for them. It's called a public library. And they are already forcing you to use the phone and the Internet, on occasion -- filing for unemployment in my area takes place over the Internet, even if you walk into the office, and you have to report in over the phone.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Let's see...
I'm a member of the older generation.
I'm an IT worker with a degree in telecommunications.
I have dialup at home. It's $11 a month. I use it for e-mail, boards, and webcomics.
At work I have broadband. I use it in my free time for e-mail, boards, and webcomics.
I have no desire for streaming media. The only use for a big pipe I have is the occasional software download.
Where I live I have three choices for broadband: cable, the package from the phone company, and Cricket wireless. If the prices dropped by half, I'd probably pick one and go with it. I'm already leaning towards Cricket--the main thing holding me back is iffy coverage in my neighborhood.
A lot of older people, especially the elderly, have no need or desire for the internet.
My father-in-law is sixty-something. He's a bit crufty around the edges, and is proud of the cruft. He's very, very smart. Back in his day, he was into cars - he can diagnose many car ailments in cars as they drive by!
But when it came to the Internet, he was stubborn about "it's just not for me". My Mother-in-law has had a (really old, slow) computer with DSL for years, and for Christmas this year, I gave them a refurbished Athlon XP computer from parts I had laying around.
He remained thoroughly uninterested until he asked me one day: "Why would I give a damned about the Internet?" So I asked him if there was anything at all he was interested in RIGHT NOW. He said: "I love those old-time radio shows they used to air back in the 50s, and 60s." So, about 5 minutes later, I had several hours of old-time radio shows downloaded to an MP3 player and he was listening.
Suddenly, the Internet isn't something obscure, "out there" - it's something HE can benefit from, right now.
And that's makes the Internet special. It's not what somebody ELSE thought it should be, it's what EVERYBODY else thought that you might want it to be, as voted up or down based on your own tastes. And it's different for each person.
*My* Internet includes software engineering, tech-oriented news/blogs, LOLcats, and documentary/sci-fi movies delivered by NetFlix. I don't do recipes, I couldn't possibly care less about old-time country radio shows, and I don't watch "the stars". The stuff I like appears almost magically, and the stuff I don't like barely skiffs my conscious before disappearing.
The Internet represents many things, but most importantly, it's the purest ever reflection of humanity looking at ourselves.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
He doesn't have one of these.
Consistently better than microwave popcorn.
Unless you forget to turn the handle.
Putting moderation advice in your
I'm a programmer. At work I have a super fast broadband connection. At home I have 56k modem. I have absolutely no interest in getting broadband at home. After spending all day on the internet at work I don't even want to check my email once I get home. I wonder how many of the 2/3 are in the same boat? They have access to broadband thru work or somewhere else so they don't feel the need to get it at home.
that there is porn on line - they'll be there like a shot!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
>>>The broadband is free, because this is a conceptual question of service.
Most intelligent people, even when told something is "free", know that it's not true. There's a cost and it has to be paid, even if that cost is hidden.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I do have a septic pump, you insensitive clod! ;-)
It's true cities have centralized sewer lines, but not "everyone" has that. People outside the metro area use septic pumps and private water wells. It's analogous to the broadband vs. dialup distribution.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
still think that confangled 'lectricity is the devils work
To not want it suggests they have no or see no need for it. And let's face it, man has survived happily (on the whole) for a long time without broadband or the internet.
twenty years when I get old.
(Cue "This Old Man" by "MC Frontalot" :-)
I plan to give up the iPhone when they can wrest it from my cold dead hands.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yeah, the point is, in a city it'd be a bitch to dig up the ground to put in a septic pump. Concrete, avoiding existing pipes and wires... there would be an uproar.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Maybe it's because 2/3 of Americans can't read.