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Is Google Making the Digital Divide Worse?
theodp writes "As Google Fiber forges ahead into new metro areas, Michael Brick reports on worries the fiber project will create a permanent underclass. Building the next generation of information economy infrastructure around current demand, experts say, will deny poor people the physical wiring needed to gain access while the privileged digerati advance at hyperspeed. 'The fiber service deployment means multiplicity of the digital divide, multidimensionality of the digital divide,' says Eun-A Park of the Univ. of New Haven. 'You can see it in Google's trial in Kansas City.' Speed matters, explains Google, 'because a world with universal access and 100 times faster internet could mean 100 times the learning.' Without universal access, as is the case in KC due to pricing that's out of the reach of many of the city's poor, one presumes the outcome could be 100x the learning divide. Another case of the unintended consequences of good intentions?"
I'd like to hear more about this.
Wow, if only there were some kind of organized system of, say, i don't know, governance for ensuring that under-represented members of our communities get equal access to economic resources? Like a set of written guidelines or maybe rules that all members of a community need to abide by...
"...'because a world with universal access and 100 times faster internet could mean 100 times the learning."
Oh, you funny crazy optimistic Google guys. You confused 'learning' with 'pornography and memes'.
Besides that, what about people in rural areas? What about people who still rely on dialup? They're already in existence but because some rich people in certain cities will have stupid fast Internet, there's suddenly an Internet class divide?
The only people harmed by Google's high speed access are the CEOs of companies that have sucked down billions in government money for providing high speed internet access while doing nothing to actually provide it.
So, a faster speed is bad because some won't have access to it? How is not implementing a faster speed option going to help them? This is the exact same problem with, for example, real estate: Since some people can pay for better houses, should we prohibit such houses because it gives them an unfair advantage? It seems that the author does not realize that the problem is of much greater dimensions than: "Google is discriminating people by income." Capitalism is discriminating people by income, and if that is his complaint, then his article sucks at conveying it.
Yes, the company offering free service if you pay a one-time fee for the hookup (a fairly reasonable one, at that) is totally making the digital divide worse. Clearly.
The pricing of their gigabit offering is fantastic. And while that price is undoubtedly out of the reach of poor people, so is almost everything. If it's really that important to have gigabit internet for the nation's poor, then that's something the government (as well as charitable organizations) needs to subsidize, just like with anything else that is deemed necessary (but too expensive for the poverty-stricken to afford). In no way can Google be reasonably found to be at fault here.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
From the link they provided, you can get FREE basic internet, and IIRC, they were even waiving the $300 setup fee that the page mentions.
...Ford is making the transportation gap worse by producing vehicles that the poor can't afford, and I am making the car analogy gap worse by making car analogies people who don't read Slashdot can't see.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
That's what I call Google fiber: this goddamned company is trying to control anything, from the OS (Android) to carrier to search engine to the entire freaking internet.
Don't you see? It's not the digital divide we should fear, it's the Google monopoly. Once they control everything, they'll dictate what you can do and not do on their internet.
Super-fast internet connectivity attracts internet users like honey the proverbial fly. That's why Google offers it. Once we're stuck in the honey though, we'll be in real trouble...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Who is paying this shill?
the only reason i have 20/2 is for netflix and youtube. the latter being the most educational, but the educational videos can be played on slower speeds
everything else would work with under 10mbps internet
wikipedia doesn't need 1gbps and that's the most educational site there is
there is only one reason for fast internet and that's to make you spend more money buying on impulse. 1gpbs you can buy that movie NOW instead of waiting for the blu ray. or get that PS4 game NOW instead of driving to gamestop or best buy or waiting on amazon
...Another case of the unintended consequences of good intentions?...
It is more a case of leaping blindly into unsubstantiated conclusions based upon the cherry-picking of information that suits your intent.
This seems as good a time as any to dust off Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Assuming Google fiber will force the competition to lower prices or increase their own bandwidth this is a simplified example of what is happening.
Would you rather have:
Google Fiber allowed: 50% of people have 1000 Mbit internet and 50% of people have 10 Mbit internet
or
Google Fiber is not allowed: 50% of people have 20 Mbit internet and 50% of people have 5 Mbit internet
Forcing equality often just means lowering the standards of living for everyone. Even for people at the bottom.
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Cities that want to help business should embrace fiber and use their dollars to help build it out, instead trying to attract business via cheap loans or tax relief. Spend the tax dollars to improve everyone's life.
Man, wait until he/she finds out that Comcast is charging us $80/month for a fraction of that speed.
As we all know, Google's charter starts with the phrase "First, Do Evil".
Look, there's literally a 100 GB/second pipe in the building I'm in, and two more just 2 blocks away, and 40 GB/second pipes all over the UW Seattle campus and the UW Tacoma campus.
Almost all top tier US and Canadian research universities have this, and we could easily build this out within a few miles if we actually wanted to fund that as a National Priority, just like we went to the Moon when we wanted to.
There are choices.
We just aren't prepared to fund them as a nation.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
People also use the internet for learning.
You can't hold back progress just because not everyone has gotten aboard the train. That train is leaving just as soon as it can make a buck.
Po'boy can't get no youtube lickitysplit on an ol' busted DSL line, but he can still browse wikipedia. And back when he couldn't get wikipedia he could still hit up a library. And I imagine people will complain that the poor unwashed masses with their slow and broken fiber lines won't be able to access the hivemind as quickly as and as comfortably as his rich relatives.
You're bitching that the digital divide is increasing because someone is plowing ahead. The poor will always be playing catchup. It's part of what makes them poor. And sure, that sucks. But would you blame the Wright brothers for keep the poor downtrodden and earthbound while making a device that only the rich could afford? No. So please, kindly, GTFO of the way of progress. CHOO CHOO!
http://www.wired.com/wiredente...
And Google Fiber is already having positive effects on their cable competition:
http://consumerist.com/2013/01...
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
It's the old communist argument - everyone must be equal. That this boils down to is bring everyone to the lowest common denominator. World isn't fair, and good thing because if it was we'd all be on welfare (to be fair to the lazy guy who doesn't want to work, we should all not work to have the same this) - oh wait, who would pay for this welfare for all? I know, the rich guys. Ok, let's see, if we were to spread Bill Gate's fortune across the population of the world, we'd all get what, $10 each? Not to mention there would be no food since all farmers, bakers, and other professions would also be on welfare so it would be fair.
The idea here is that when a significant portion of the internet population has 100mb/s connections then web site owners will start building services that cater to those people and require that quick of a connection. This will leave the people that are wayyy on the other side of the curve that much further behind. There is not analogous effect in real estate, i.e. if 10% more of the population has larger houses then it doesn't eventually make your small house less functional.
Anyway, I disagree with your argument but not with your point. I think a better analogy would have been car ownership. It's very hard to get around and keep a job (outside of the inner city) without a car. The infrastructure of our society has become so dependent on cars that only the very poor don't have one. However, if anyone seriously tried to argue that making better cars was promoting the class divide they would be laughed at. It misses the point.
Some people having slow connections instead of fast connections is clearly superior to everybody having slow connections.
The fault in causing the digital divide lies not with Google for being fast, but rather with every other ISP for being slow!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You are right, I missed that point and your analogy is better. Nevertheless, I also think that it is unlikely that the educational content of the internet will devolve into a bandwidth hungry activity (anyone have insights on this?), which is the cited example. After all, the elite of the United States is still educated in classrooms, and the most data that can come out of that is a video stream. See, for example, oyc.yale.edu, which provides video of lectures (and even transcripts), problem sets, tests and other materials. I think that a bandwidth divide just promotes a luxury divide (something acceptable in capitalism) and does not make the divide larger by affecting other divides, such as education.
An old joke about neighbor envy ...
An angel in disguise visit a peasant's hut and is brought inside. The peasant shares what little food he has, and lets him sleep under his only blanket.
The next morning the angel reveals himself and tells the peasant he will be rewarded, but the catch is, whatever the peasant asks for, his neighbor will get double.
The peasant, agonized, thinks on it all day. Finally he tells the angel "I ask that you put out one of my eyes".