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2/3 of Americans Without Broadband Don't Want It

Posted by kdawson on from the if-we-build-it-will-they-come dept.

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."

12 of 538 comments (clear)

  1. Don't want to pay by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Don't want to pay by shellster_dude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Don't want to pay by Manywele · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Don't want to pay by qortra · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It doesn't look like a dupe to me. The articles that are linked to this time around concern a broadband stimulus package that the Obama administration is mulling over. They both do seem to be based on the same research though.

    4. Re:Don't want to pay by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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!

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    5. Re:Don't want to pay by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>>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!")

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    6. Re:Don't want to pay by nine-times · · Score: 5, Funny

      At the very least, don't go posting pics of yourself half nekkid with friends, sucking a skull bong.

      I'm a bit dyslexic, but when I read that, at first I thought you wrote, "sucking a bull dong." I thought, wow, no wonder cayenne8 wants some privacy. I wouldn't that showing up during a job interview, either.

    7. Re:Don't want to pay by ribo-bailey · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    8. Re:Don't want to pay by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>>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)

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. My father... by michrech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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!
  3. Bad article by RockMFR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. However, 1/3 do want it by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.