of Madhogarh, a picturesque village nestled beneath a 17th-century fortified palace in the heart of Rajasthan, came to Indra Sharma three years ago to ask if she would attend a workshop. “Something about the internet,” Ms Sharma, a 40-year-old child-care worker, recalls. She had no particular interest in this internet thing. But she liked the idea of learning something new, so she went along.
The size and speed of India’s growth spurt owes a lot to the price war Reliance Jio set off. But the global trend it embodies does not. At some time in 2018 the proportion of the global population using the internet rose above half, according to the International Telecommunications Union, aagency. The second half of the internet will not come online as quickly as the first half was doing in the early 2010s; exponential growth cannot continue in a finite world.
Until recently, talk of connectivity in the poor world has almost invariably been clothed in the pragmatic and well-meaning language of development. Aid agencies, international bodies and big tech companies told themselves and their funders that poor people needed an internet connection to lift themselves out of misery. They extolled farmers looking up grain prices, women seeking information on maternal health or pupils diligently signing up for online courses.
Back in Madhogarh, Ms Sharma uses her phone to video-chat with her son in Jaipur, three or four hours away by bus. The younger Ms Sharma uses her phone mostly for WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, and for watching videos on YouTube and TikTok, a Chinese-owned social app that has been downloaded a billion times since its launch in 2017, largely by people outside the world’s big cities. Her smartphone does allow her to look up coursework for the classes she teaches.
Video offers its users whatever their lives need. Ms Sharma of Madhogarh uses YouTube to look up recipes, among other things. Recipes were a selling point for the menfolk of the village. They were reluctant to allow their wives to have smartphones until they were told that it would help the women cook new dishes. The kitchen is not the only site of consumption. A lot of Indians use phones to look at pornography with a level of privacy not previously easy to come by.
Ways of making money out of other people’s internet use have not yet come to grips with the timepass of the almost entirely unwealthy. In the most recent full year, 46% of Google’s revenues came from the United States and 6% from the rest of the Americas. Asia contributed 15%. A Facebook user in North America generates 12 times more in revenue than one in Asia, and most of today’s Facebook users in Asia are better off than most of those who are on the way.
what about the half that has censored internet. You know, dumbnet.
It will bring massive amount of data to analyse. Challenging but exciting too
That access to it should be free and unlimited as it's becoming a world wide essential.
It probably means that just like Pepsi, and Coca Cola did with new emerging markets in the 70's and 80's. 'Internet' companies will be heading that way to try, and gain access to new 'clients'.
Now we need a digitalcurrency that can allow people to connect with the global economy and that can be accesible to everyone. It has to be decentralized, secure, feeless, instant and eco-friendly. $NANO rings a bell. 😄
It will mean the use of $Nano as a global daily use currency. - Secure - Zero inflation - Instant - Permissionless - Easy to teach granny - Scalable - Ever-increasingly decentralized - Green NanoTipBot !tip 0.123456789 It's 08:03UTC. Don't blink!
More money for Amazon
I like his shirt
More data to be collected. Collecting data is important. It has always been. It is the basis of knowledge, knowing what is. Studying data is the basis of information, knowing what might be. That being said platforms that enable data capturing are the real winners.
More petty social media drama fueled by pornography implications.
The raise of 1000s of new Trumps.
a lot of bots and hatred
More spam?
Means, more disorder and turmoil.
I hope for a change it brings good things, peace and justice.
More racists and annoying trolls that’s what it means
More hysteria about global warming. 😎
Much more bullshit and shitfuckery
Festina Laente is the spirit
More Shitposting
The internet and its apps are a great way of restoring control and sustaining peace. Reading books may cause a revolution.
Honey Badgers are known to eat snakes, birds, beehives (honey), and rodents. They are even somewhat immune to snake venom.
Every single terrorist, every single mass shooter, every single virgin/now rapist, has left a profile of wish listing, window shopping for things they will never have. Stop telling people equality is possible. It will never be. How do you eliminate sloth? envy?
They aren't spending their time looking at electricity, clean culinary water, & vaccinations are they?
l'Comparison is the thief of joy.' - from Women's General Session.
If you increasingly spend your time in proximity to things you will never have, it makes you...
Interesting. But you never question whether our experience with the 1st half should bear some lessons on how to go on with the development of leisure services for the 2nd half of the world... how about reflecting on something else than profitability?
Social institutions are critical to guide the poor (and the rich) to wisely engage with new technologies, particularly digital ones. Technological change must be accompanied with adjustments in social institutions. Otherwise, technological disruptions undermine local livelihoods.
That’s me🤣
vikramchandra Reliance jio saw this opportunity a few years back. He has ensured high data at low cost and reduced everyone's phone Bill's.
Google is an international monopoly. The attacks, against Huawei&Google's reaction to them, is a serious contribution to a necessary awareness at international level, in part of corporations& users. Google must be challenge, the EU is correct as China, Russia&other countries.
Soviet Federation Lazy
Entertainment has always been the driving force behind tech. Did business need the speed or hard drive space to run spreadsheets or word docs? To use a landline? No. Gamers did. Music downloaders did. Movie and video streamers did. The need for high end bandwidth is driven by fun
cryptocurrency blockchain oh, and theeconomistiscorrupt
Makes me wonder why people are stuck in the loop on this. I wouldn't imagine the world is very into technology like the ones in the US. They are basically the same people that have a laptop and really shouldn't have to deal with it.
The Next Billion won't call it by that name..
Interesting figures..i think in years to come..it will be 150% considering the weights internet is being given by the 'internet' ;)
Well golly, I sure hope they bring more bots, trolls and jerks. We've really been in short supply.