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."

Comments

Don't want to pay

[TaoPhoenix]

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.

Re:Don't want to pay

[shellster_dude]

Um, no they don't. My generation "needs" broadband. A lot of older people,
especially the elderly, have no need or desire for the internet.
I suspect that when I am in my eighties, I will have
much less desire to communicate with the world or check the news on a minute by minute basis.
Just because some of us use the internet on a regular basis, that
doesn't mean that everyone would be better off for it.

Re:Don't want to pay

[vertinox]

Of course they want it. They just don't want to pay scary fees for it.

Yeah. The key problem with US broad band is the people providing the broadband and not the customers.

I would almost suspect this kind of report would be used by the providers as an excuse not to roll out to rural areas.

Of course, these same companies will quash any rural municipality attempt to create their own network.

Re:Don't want to pay

[Manywele]

The older generation doesn't know they want it. My parents (~70 years old) resisted dumping AOL dial-up until they were more or less pushed into getting broadband. Now both of them have discovered all the high bandwidth stuff on the web that they actually like and want to watch like videos on gardening or quilting. They don't use it much to communicate, they're not on facebook or twitter, they use the internet for finding information they want and now really appreciate the bandwidth. With dial-up finding what they wanted was just too painful so the percieved value was very low.

Re:Don't want to pay

[cayenne8]

"They don't use it much to communicate, they're not on facebook or twitter..."

I consider myself moderately young (or young minded) and I steer clear of facebook or other social networking crap. My friends my age have it, but, I'm too concerned about privacy issues, etc to mess with that. I'm still of the mindset I got from the earlier days of the internet...try to stay anonymous as you can within reason. At the very least, don't go posting pics of yourself half nekkid with friends, sucking a skull bong.

:)

It could come back to haunt you later for a job interview...especially if it is security related.

Re:Don't want to pay

[theshowmecanuck]

This is exactly right and can be pushed even further. About 15 or 20 years ago my mother, who is now 85, didn't have a microwave oven and stated flatly that it was because she didn't need or want one even if we told her we'd buy it for her. So we bought her one anyway. Two weeks after she told us she would never use it, she was using it every day for something or other. Lately she has even expressed regret about not taking a basic computer course a number of years ago; now that she realizes how useful it would have been to keep in touch with friends and family. So yes, if people don't realize what they are missing, they won't miss it. Some times this is good, some times this is bad. This could go either way in this case... maybe we'd be better off if instead of watching a youtube video of a person mountain biking, we go out ourselves and get some exercise and talk to real people in person. ;) Now... back to work!

Re:Don't want to pay

[commodore64_love]

>>>Some of us need broadband? Have you tried to apply for a job without the internet lately?

You can't apply for a job using 50k dialup? Huh. I guess I'm just using magic then. (Waves hands over the resume - "transmit!")

Re:Don't want to pay

[ribo-bailey]

What will your employers think about your pimp-slapping homepage link?

Re:Don't want to pay

[jcnnghm]

It could come back to haunt you later for a job interview...especially if it is security related.

I think it's going to go the other way once people begin to realize that most people are human and have a life outside of the office. In other words, people will loosen up a bit and realize that having pictures of yourself doing the stuff that everybody else is doing anyway isn't a bad thing, the increased transparency will force standards to relax. Sort of like how Clinton didn't inhale, Bush snorted coke, and Obama smoked pot, yet they were all able to be elected. 50 years ago that likely wouldn't have been the case.

Perhaps we'll finally lighten up a bit about nudity now that porn, and all sorts of weird stuff at that, is so readily available online and viewed in such massive numbers.

Re:Don't want to pay

[commodore64_love]

>>>The older generation doesn't know they want it.

You (and some others) sound like the TV preacher I recently heard. "Many people don't know they need GAWD in their lives. They don't know it, but they DO need him, because he will make their lives better!" (crowd cheers). "We must give them gawd as soon as possible even if they claim they don't want it. It's for their own good!"

Replace "gawd" with "broadband" and you have a politician and/or slashdotter.

(ducks spitball)

Re:Don't want to pay

[sorak]

IMO, Computer skills, in general, are becoming what literacy was a century ago. Sure, it is a skill that some don't have, and those that don't often are not constrained by money, or availability of the requisite materials.

And in some cases, such the case of the elderly, or a factory worker living in a trailer park, somewhere, the skill may not be needed. But those who choose to do without are limiting themselves and their potential.

As for their children and neighbors, well, they are part of that other 1/3, and the fact that they are outnumbered does not make computer literacy any less useful for them.

Not surprising

[damn_registrars]

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.

Re:Not surprising

[Jurily]

and even if you gave them broadband for free they still wouldn't be interested.

Until they find the porn.

No its not.

[Shivetya]

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

Re: Willing to pay ... small amounts

[TaoPhoenix]

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).

Bad article

[RockMFR]

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.

I dunno...

[roc97007]

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.