The Rate at Which the World is Getting Online Has Fallen Sharply Since 2015, New Report Suggests (theguardian.com)

Ian Sample, writing for The Guardian: The growth of internet access around the world has slowed dramatically, according to new data, suggesting the digital revolution will remain a distant dream for billions of the poorest and most isolated people on the planet. The striking trend, described in an unpublished report shared with the Guardian, shows the rate at which the world is getting online has fallen sharply since 2015, with women and the rural poor substantially excluded from education, business and other opportunities the internet can provide.

The slowdown is described in an analysis of UN data that will be published next month by the Web Foundation, an organisation set up by the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The data shows that growth in global internet access dropped from 19% in 2007 to less than 6% last year. "We underestimated the slowdown and the growth rate is now really worrying," said Dhanaraj Thakur, research director at the Web Foundation. "The problem with having some people online and others not is that you increase the existing inequalities. If you're not part of it, you tend to lose out."

Comments

Not necessarily a bad thing

[Anonymous Coward]

20 years ago the internet was a valuable resource. Now it's pretty much worthless, a cesspool of privacy invasion, spying, advertizing and battleground for the so-called "culture war".

It's not about reducing inequality, it's about getting fresh meat into the machine to be exploited for everything they are worth...

Re:Not necessarily a bad thing

[jellomizer]

As you post this online.

I expect it the rate decline, is for the most part internet is accessible to the world now, nothing about the content on what is on it.
We are at a point where anyone who wants to be online is online, it isn't something that people are striving to get.

Back when I was a Kid, The "internet" was just across some universities, and government R&D. By the time I was a teenager, it was mostly just for Colleges and Universities, with some businesses using it for email. Some BBS's were using it (such as the FIDO Net) to avoid long distance calls to share message data, as well large businesses were using it for FTP sites.
By my late teens, with the World Wide Web becoming popular. More consumer content was out, dial up internet was cheap but slow. However it was a toy for geeks.
By my young adult, it became popular for normal users, as well early broadband that isn't thousands of dollars a month. was available. But still it was a first world luxury.
Then it just became more common and now it is generally available for anyone around the world. Growth rate now is probably getting close to normal population growth.

I face the same problem

[houghi]

I have this great idea where you I get two people to invest in me, those two find 2 other people invest in them.

So a growth of 2 to 4 is 100%, from 4 to 7 is only 75%, while it is more. Amazeballs!

How is the slowdown distributed?

[Applehu Akbar]

Is Internet penetration slowing in the parts of the world where building the infrastructure to remaining large populations is the most difficult, because of either physical remoteness or social chaos, or is the problem getting to the most remote people in the developed world?

If you are operating off-grid in the Sierra Nevada, getting Internet service at a reasonable price will be no easier than joining the electrical grid. You can put up some solar panels for cheap basic power, but if your only chance at getting Internet is an Iridium subscription, you might opt to wait for Project Loon.

Re:low hanging fruit

[Muros]

It's not even as bad as that. The rate that was shown in the article was about the rate of growth of the number of people with internet access. I tried working backwards with the figures they gave (44.9% of women, 50.9% of men, for an average of 47.9%) and estimating the percentage of the world's population that had internet access in each of the years the graph in the article showed a growth rate for. The resulting numbers give an almost linear increase of 3% per annum, so the numbers getting online each year isn't diminishing, it's just that each year there are more already online compared to newcomers. If that trend continues the entire world will be online around 2035.

Re:low hanging fruit

[Calydor]

Ahh, that makes sense. They're trying to create an exponential growth in a finite population and that'll never happen.

Basic Math/Science. Try it.

[gerald.edward.butler]

It's called an S-Curve. It's the normal way things grow. First exponentially, then linearly, then logarithmicly. S-Curve. Say it once. Say it twice. Stop being surprised by this basic fact on everything. Maybe if dumb-ass MBA's and business people learned more about "growth" than "exponential" (which they don't understand) we could stop having these stupid, "Wow! This new thing is growing really fast. Oh no, this thing that was growing really fast isn't growing fast anymore. What is going on?" stories.