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Chris Rossini
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1 year ago
in 2008/06/25/death-of-newspapers/ on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
I think you made some great points until the last 2 paragraphs.
If a person cannot afford access to the Internet, it does not follow that this person is being "disenfranchised."
If a person can afford Internet access, but **by use of force** it was being prohibited, I think you would have an argument.
But lack of funds is an economic part of just about every person's life.
It would be silly for me to say that because of lack of funding, I'm being "disenfranchised" from owning a million dollar home, or a Rolls Royce....
It's just an economic reality, and no one is forcefully stopping me from earning either of these things.
Like I said, other than the very end, I enjoyed the post.
If a person cannot afford access to the Internet, it does not follow that this person is being "disenfranchised."
If a person can afford Internet access, but **by use of force** it was being prohibited, I think you would have an argument.
But lack of funds is an economic part of just about every person's life.
It would be silly for me to say that because of lack of funding, I'm being "disenfranchised" from owning a million dollar home, or a Rolls Royce....
It's just an economic reality, and no one is forcefully stopping me from earning either of these things.
Like I said, other than the very end, I enjoyed the post.
1 reply
But one has to look at the reasons that one cannot afford the access. I know myself I am typically one bill away from losing access on an almost continuous basis. I have seen my monthly bill go up twice since I first signed up with Bell. How many more increases can be dealt with before it become financially impossible to stay connected.
I understand the need for companies to make a profit but with the whole idea behind things like continuous information flow is that we have 24/7/365 access to the Internet. That access though is being controlled by companies that want to exert more and more control over the access and charge increasing amounts of money to gain that access.
That I would take as being disenfranchised. The arguement that lack of money is keeping you from a million dollar home or owning a Rolls Royce doesn't fly because neither of those are being billed as a neccessity of life - a utility - like the Internet is.
With the increasing reliance of access to the Internet to manage even the most mundane tasks of our daily lives being on the wrong side of the technological divide puts a growing segment of our society at a disadvantage - there is no escaping that fact.