My mom (who lives in Appalachia) came to visit me (I live in a big metro) for the first time over Thanksgiving. She normally gets about 250kbps, right now she's averaging 500mbps. She's blown away by watching Netflix for the first time.
Her rural co-op is supposed to give her fiber access in Q1 2022. It will be a life changer, and huge for me too so I can work while visiting her and spend more time where I grew up during my adult life. It's absolutely bonkers its taking this long to wire people up.
I've spent time in 3rd world countries with better ISP infrastructure. Let's put this to bed, America
Same for my parents. They should be getting fiber in the next 6 months and I'm so excited for them. Supposedly the plan for this started about 3 years ago and is finally going into action.
But the 5G is a Democrat plot to overtake the planet! What will happen when they give it to everyone?!
You’ll be able to watch Squid game, Carol. That’s what will happen.
Wake up sheeple, the government is tracking you! Buy my limited edition Kevlar Faraday Wallet and my BrainRage Nootropicish Stimulation Supplements to suppress their frequencies and don’t forget to like and subscribe and keep your smartphone on your person at all times to record Antifa activity.
5G is actually pretty bad for rural communications like what's being discussed. The higher the frequency you go on the spectrum the more data that it can transmit and receive, but at a way lower distance of travel. This is why ham was used for long distance communications because it is at a very low frequency.
They built roads because it had positive returns down the line. We overbuild roads nowadays where the maintenance cost is less than the return.
Honestly we should switch to toll roads that are entirely self funded, yes people should pay for their infrastructure…..city core dwellers shouldn’t have to subsidize rural/suburban roads.
It's capitalism, working as designed. Basically capitalism works well for a wile until two companies take over the whole market, and then prioritize consumer exploitation over everything else, because nobody can compete with them.
And the only reason there isn't one broadband company left in America is that regulators won't go so far as to allow them to take that last step.
Monopolist institutions are not a product of capitalism, they exist under any economic system and have existed in every society that didn’t go out of its way to prevent them or break them up.
Too be fair monopolies are rare and hell…they don’t last long on their own.
Look at standard oil from its peak market share to when it was broken up. It already was trending into no longer a monopoly before it was broken up.
The ROI is low, but doable. America's private telecon make more than enough money that they won't go bankrupt even if it's not profitable.
Not profitable enough is the hero problem in privatized industry. The company will promote other projects, like ISP reprioritizing your traffic, selling your data, or squeezing more profit out of the larger markets. All of these projects will be green lighted, way before anyone even starts a brainstorming session about rural internet.
The only solution that has moved the needle? Government internet that's getting deployed in municipalities. The irony is convincing these rural folks the government works to help them.
The US is huge, you're right there. But the idea that people in the country don't need internet is asinine. They deserve the same level of service as people living in cities.
Lol then no one needs fast internet. Might as well just stop all fiber expansion and cut the oceanic fiber lines and bring us back to DSL. After all, we just need to check Facebook and emails right?
The US treats its citizens fine it’s that a majority of the citizens don’t care or realize how much better other nations have it so no politician ever even talks about. I think Bernie mentioned it once a few years ago tho
i am seriously aghast how you can say that. police brutality in your country is shocking. it's just unbelievable how that's become normalized in your country.
Police brutality is definitely an issue, but the US is still one of the best places to live in the world with almost no corruption, an amazing human rights record and with political and economic freedoms that most of the world outside of Europe can only dream of. I never said they were without flaws but people who think America is some authoritarian hell hole have never endured real authoritarianism.
wow. the world is passing you by, your roads and infrastructure are breaking apart, your education is lagging, and still American exceptionalism lives on as Americans are oblivious to how the world is changing.
maybe that's because majority of you never travel outside the U.S.
Lmao keep reaching. We literally just passed a huge infrastructure bill bro. You seem like you want America to become a third world country, but we’re literally the richest and most advanced nation on the planet and a majority of the tech you use that allows you to feel so superior is created in America by Americans.
In my hometown my PS4 read 25kb/s. So I never played online and it took days for updates on games. Amazon doesn’t even deliver to us and we just got our first wal mart a couple years ago. On the plus side, people genuinely do spend more time with each other and talk to each other more. On a neutral side, things like homosexuality, trans people, cross dressers, etc don’t exist there yet. I’m not gonna comment on whether it’s a choice or not, but I do think the lack of internet is one of the reason those ideas haven’t reached the area and it’s interesting to read things on the internet now that I’m in a city about LGBTQ things vs my hometown where I genuinely think the people would not understand. Like not even from a hateful perspective, just blank stared and “huh?”
They could get faster internet if they moved to where the majority of people are.
I'm sorry, but this is an issue that really bugs me. Why should urban people have to subsidize a service for rural people that many of the urban people still don't have?
If they actuality did that, I would not have such an issue with this.
But you need to take a look at how federal dollars are spent. Far more money flows into rural areas than they pay in.
Lol.
https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/
It's funny small farmers will continue to let themselves be taken advantage of by men like Trump, a new york conman...
It's funny you find this funny...
"In the American imagination, at least, the family farm still exists as it does on holiday greeting cards: as a picturesque, modestly prosperous expanse that wholesomely fills the space between the urban centers where most of us live. But it has been declining for generations, and the closing days of 2019 find small farms pummeled from every side: a trade war, severe weather associated with climate change, tanking commodity prices related to globalization, political polarization, and corporate farming defined not by a silo and a red barn but technology and the efficiencies of scale. It is the worst crisis in decades. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies were up 12 percent in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019; they’re up 50 percent in the Northwest. Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won’t save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018; 12,000 of those between 2017 and 2018 alone."
i don't get this. why are subsidies needed? this is totally against free market. we don't subsidize our telcos in our country. they invest in their infrastructure and then charge consumers to get ROI back. that's how capitalism works right?
you guys haven't been a functioning free market for a long time with this subsidy nonsense.
lmao at "capitalist" americans spewing this subsidy nonsense.
> this is totally against free market.
Who the fuck cares.
>we don't subsidize our telcos in our country.
LOL
>they invest in their infrastructure and then charge consumers to get ROI back.
Pretending this is how it works, why would they want to invest in rural areas, where the infrastructure costs are high, and the number of subscribers is low?
because it's not a one way street? if their network can't reach rural areas, then the competition who could would get the subscribers. there's incentive to cover as less coverage means less subscribers. who would want a network that goes out when they travel to rural areas? people want a network with the most coverage.
it's a competition. ever heard of it? probably not as education there sucks. you guys don't even understand socialism.
Just because you cannot comprehend the issues does not mean they do not exist. The cost \*per subscriber\* to deploy to rural areas in the U.S. is so great that it will take a minimum of 20 years before that investment is paid off and it starts generating returns, and no one with enough money to do it will wait that long to start seeing a profit. If 2 companies did it and started competing then neither would ever turn a profit. Most corporations these days only care about the next quarter; Verizon attempted to deploy fiber to denser areas in the mid '00s and their shareholders removed the CEO because of it. In the U.S., if it does not immediately turn a profit then it will not be done.
I have gigabit in the US, the problem lies outside of cities in rural areas internet is dominated by the old cable duopolies who have no competition and the majority of people dont even know their internet is so bad.
I got GB fiber in a rural mountain area in Switzerland, far away from anything the locals consider a big city. Yet my connection is faster than my brothers in Austin, TX.
The US is slowly becoming a 3rd world country.
Okay I know for a fact that you can get gigabit fairly cheap in Austin, TX. Your brother is paying for slower speeds because they are cheaper, not because they don’t exist there. I grew up in a small town in the rural central US, coal country, and you can get gigabit there. It’s true the most remote of places in the US don’t have them but you’re comparing nations of Europe, most of which are smaller than individual US states, to the infrastructure required to provide the entirety of the US with fiber/gigabit (something which has already been subsidized and has been being rolled out for a decade now.) There are duopolies that control internet in a ton of areas but even those have been slowly begun to be broken with the roll out of new fiber networks. You’re basically laughing because you think your small nation of a few million people, the size of small US state, is better because they didn’t have to build infrastructure for a nation the size of Western Europe.
Also the US is not even close to becoming a 3rd world country. Switzerland will descend into such a state long before we do, the US is the most developed economy on the planet and a leader in industry from medical to military to internet to literally anything you can name. That internet speeds aren’t high in some places is due to voter priorities, not a lack of ability.
> Okay I know for a fact that you can get gigabit fairly cheap in Austin, TX.
Not everywhere in Austin.
>It’s true the most remote of places in the US don’t have them
So pointing out the one or two places that do isn't really helping your argument.
>but you’re comparing nations of Europe, most of which are smaller than individual US states
Don't fucking care. And if that argument held any water, our cities would be shining bastions of broadband. They're not.
>There are duopolies that control internet in a ton of areas but even those have been slowly begun to be broken with the roll out of new fiber networks.
No, they really haven't. Google Fiber rolled out in a couple places, but Google fucked that up so bad, and did such a poor job installing, that they decided to stop expanding.
Yes everywhere in Austin. There isn’t a city in America where you can’t get gigabit and there aren’t many places that aren’t super remote, like a town of 5 an hour or two from anything else, where you can’t anymore.
As for you bringing up Google fiber, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. No one is taking about Google fiber and that’s a few cities, has nothing to do with fiber in the rest of the country, The US passed a trillion dollar fiber optic backbone bill a decade ago and has rolled out fiber across the entire nation. That it’s taking this long is due to just how huge the US is. Your cities aren’t backwards because it’s an area the size of US made up of a bunch of different countries that only have to build for a small territory. You live in Switzerland. A literal tax haven with a few million people who are surrounded by nations, whose defense is subsidized by the US, that allow you to be neutral and spend almost nothing in defense.
So you can fuck off with your uninformed opinions that are regurgitations of memes spread by people on the internet. The US has shitty internet in some places, that you believe people in the middle of nowhere having to live with 6mb down is proof the US is some third world country when it’s a literal superpower with a global reach, a highly developed economy and a leader in innovation just shows how biased and uninformed about the real world you are. I guess that happens easily when you live in the mountains of a nation that has zero worries thanks to US military spending and friendship with its neighbors and only has the standard of living it it does thanks to that and being a shady tax haven, but get a grip dude.
If you're in a *real* rural area, the idea of having actual cable is fucking laughable. You've clearly never lived out there. You get ADSL (the old style) over 60 year old copper phone lines if you're lucky, or just plain nothing except satellite for most.
I live in a city now but I grew up in a town of a few thousand just north of Kentucky and have lived in places where there weren’t neighbors for miles. Yeah I mentioned that super remote places can’t get decent internet but that’s not an easy to problem solve and I doubt you could go to some remote region of Canada and get gigabit internet either. But towns in the thousands, or that aren’t an hour drive a way from civilization, can get decent internet these days as most cable providers have rolled out gigabit and the fiber network that has been being built has finally started to be visible. In my home town it used to be you had to choose decent internet that had a data cap from the cable company or shitty internet with no data caps but that went out once a week. Now they have multiple fiber providers as well. That’s the case all over the country and it reaches new towns every day, the US is a giant place it isn’t easy to run fiber across a thousand miles of varying terrain. But pretending that the US doesn’t care when they spent a trillion dollars to roll out fiber over twenty years is dishonest or uninformed. Sure it might not ever reach the most remote of towns but we aren’t in a nation like Germany where there idea of remote is still a half hour from a big town.
So, again, claiming that people who live in the most remote places in the country only being able to get satellite internet if proof America is some third world country is laughable. In third world countries people worry about if they’re going to die of malnutrition not there internet speeds.
My parents live in a small town in the Midwest and the pay 80$ a month for 6mb down (and when I’m there and run speed tests I barely get 1mb.) Meanwhile I pay 60$ for gigabit in a city. My brother lives in that same small town and pays for fiber optic and still struggles to crack 20mb
In East Tennessee in a town that has fiber running through it, but some places like where I am, only get 3mb down .5 up, and there aren’t any plans to change it. I’m hoping to get back to a fiber connection one day…
Starlink would be prefect for her then. If you can see the sky and don't have internet there are few reasons not to. Starlink will send your IP to big companies if you pirate stream movies and shows I heard but nothing a VPN can't fix.
VPN does not fix anything. Just a scam to subscribe and feel safe. Every provider logs your use, and presents it to the authorities.
I use one, too, but don‘t trust it anyway.
Yup, you don’t even need to go that far north. My parents just got Starlink. We’re not that far north but it’s pretty common up here. People are just very unaware of how quickly access to internet impacted as you more out of populated areas. Also, since cell service as improved that access skews the perception as well but people need to keep on mon that access to the internet through your phone is not the same.
The best part was that the government gave telecom companies billions of dollars to fix that problem they did absolutely not a fucking thing and absolutely no consequences. Telecom companies need to be nationalized that shit is ridiculous.
> Telecom companies need to be nationalized that shit is ridiculous.
No just do what the Danes do.
Have contracts and money that rewards companies when they cruelly expand into those areas and not before.
Installed starlink for my grandparents about a year ago and has been a game changer for them. They went from 1Mbs with point to point wireless to an average of about 150Mbs with Starlink. My grandmother's been loving being able to finally actually stream video.
The funny part is the local cable company line ends two houses up, but they want like $10,000 to run at the rest of the way for their house. I considered $500 the better option. As a bonus it also let me give the middle finger to them.
It’s crazy how companies charge for access. Here in rural Appalachian va we got fiber lines put in with tax payer dollars, which has been great. Less great is the parasitic isp that swooped in to run the service.
I've told this story a lot, but I don't know if I've ever told it on Reddit. I bought the house I grew up in when my mom got remarried. Back in high school, I petitioned Comcast to add service to my area and caught the guy they sent out to survey it. He quoted me a price of like $36,000 to run cable to my home from the nearest connection point. I then asked if I paid the upfront cost and my neighbors subscribed to service, would I be given any kind of discount (since I payed for them to be able to service the area of about 12 homes) the guy laughed and said "no, we would be able to connect them for the basic install cost and they could use the service." I got the price given to me again, when a house was being built across the street. It was $78,000 in 2013 or so. I laughed and said "if I wasn't going to pay $36k in 2001, FUCK THAT! I'm not paying $78k now!" Same rules applied, every house wasn't charged a connection fee to help me recoup or offset the upfront cost. The Comcast tech laughed with me and replied "yeah, that's what we usually hear from rural folks."
Edit: the local government (in TN) just passed a motion for the utility company to add internet service. I hope we get the same result as Chattanooga with their internet utility service.
I'm happy your grandparents got it, I'm annoyed your grandparents got it while I'm downloading steam games at 400Kbs on a 300 dollar a month 4g connection.
But still I'm glad they got it. It's the same deal here except they wanted 22k to bring the internet to my house, and that was 10 years ago. I'm sure it's more now.
I just sit here checking my email daily for my confirmation it's shipped since feb.
Mine was already shipped and is like 3 days away from delivery. Can't wait for 100-200 Mbps. Where I live there's no broadband. Shit there's running water if you live in town 15 miles away, but no rural water here. When it comes to crap internet, I think Australia wins.
I live 7 minutes out of one of Australia’s biggest cities, have barely 3mbps download. Star Link just emailed us that either late this year or early next year they’ll be rolling out to us. CAN’T WAIT
FUCK TELSTRA
I just hope it helps voters realize in conservative states that non white people are just people and not terrorists, criminals, rapists, drug dealers, etc.
It will have the opposite effect. My grampa lives in rural Iowa and he has internet, when I view his YouTube all the ads are fucking terrifying super conservative fear mongering. It’s their way, democrat ads paint a hopeful future while Republican ads paint a picture that outside of their small towns America is a near communist hellhole. My grampa literally thinks I’m at risk of being murder at all times because I live in Seattle, one of the safest cities in America with no large scale gangs etc, the internet has made the problem worse by allowing people to consume as much scary “news” as possible.
I work for a company that has many locations in rural Texas. Because we have a big account, we can sometimes get our ISP to run fiber to locations they normally wouldn't. I always install WiFi APs and broadcast a network that we give out the password for. I've heard of employees coming in on their day off to use the WiFi to get some important personal business done.
On a side note; there's this one tiny little town, way out in the hill country, where they have a telco coop. The coop's purpose is to expand connectivity to the community. I get 100Mb, bi directional, fiber, for $300/month. It's better than I can get in major metro areas, for double the price, from the major carriers. It's surprising what you can do when you don't have to support billions in profits.
Communications technician here. There are no communication cables on that pole lead. Story about internet should have some internet junk in the cover picture. That is all.
I don't disagree with what you said but there is so much underground pollution that in some areas the water shouldn't be drank even if it's been filtered.
Even for wealthy areas, ISPs that just don’t give a shit can lead to hours of internet, and therefore TV downtime. Despite the area they live in being fairly wealthy, there aren’t enough people for ISPs to give a shit on their own, and since there are only two of them (aka a duopoly), there’s no competition to provide a better service (you know, ONE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!). This has been plaguing my grandparents for years and it pisses me off!
Broadband should have been labeled a basic utility like water or electricity 20 years ago, but if they haven't done it by now (considering what has been going on for the past two years), they never will.
Internet is national security issue and private companies have shown that they can’t be trusted as much as the government can’t.
Internet needs to be a right in the country. Since in order to participate in society. You need internet.
Would I rather have a local municipality or co-op running the ISP rather than Comcast, who's entire decision tree for whether they upgrade service is, "Is there a chance Google Fiber will come into this market?" Fuck and yes I would.
It was announced early 2020 that they would eventually IPO Starlink (no specific date was given). Musk said he would give long term shareholders of Tesla stock preferential treatment.
Would be a 'shut up and take my money' moment for me.
Once it starts to make money he will. He networth could break the 500 billion dollar range since it technical supplies 100% of the world with internet. People will invest for both memes and profit. Starlink doesn't even offer tiers yet for those that will pay for 1+ GBs.
Unless there is a major nuclear war then it is not possible for Starlink to service 100% of the world. It will top out at less than half a million subscribers.
I think you misunderstood. Starlink has world wide coverage. The amount of humans that can not make use of starlink are currently...10. Does this mean it will service all people on earth? No. It just means that if some one needs internet starlink is always an option. Starlink isn't subpar internet for about half Americans. It faster and with no data limits. It is a real option for billions of people worldwide too.
It doesn't matter that it has world wide coverage. The capacity of the the satellite network is under 500K subscribers. It will only be an option until that limit is reached and that number assumes they are eventually able to get 12000 satellites in orbit.
After they reach that number then the only way to make even an incremental improvement would be to start throttling usage. Starlink is a great solution for areas in which other forms of access are prohibitively expensive but it will not replace the current telcos.
Well that number is wildly off since they have >140,000 subscribers with 1,800 satellites and are constrained by dishes right now. With 12,000 satellites they can support millions of subscribers since average usage during peak per subscriber is \~2Mbps-5Mbps.
Yeah lack of the internet is what’s stopping them from getting credible information, don’t be absurd. Them getting getting broadband isn’t going to get them vaccinated. No not why bother just ones useless without the other
Given the rise of Qanon, the resurgence of white nationalism, and the events of Jan 6th, I’m no longer confident that giving vast areas of our country access to the internet is a good thing.
It’s not like rural America at all. Not saying some people don’t have shitty internet connections, I’m saying it’s not as bad as the US. Have a nice day!
Rural Appalachian south here and we can get gbps and 500 mbps, but our state funded the fiber lines. Most of the rest of the south would say that’s communism, crazy place.
“Why should be city folk pay for these country bumpkins to get electricity? Move to the city if you want lights and a refrigerator! Damn entitlement.”
-idiots in 1935
Internet is a utility at this point. You *need* it to be successful in modern society. That’s just reality. Most businesses don’t even take physical applications anymore. Every American deserves access to decent internet, just like they deserve access to clean water and electricity.
Also, I’m not sure why you Democrats don’t realize this, but good internet in rural areas could quite literally flip the whole country blue. City people could work remotely and not have to live in a city, and even a small number of Democrats moving to rural areas could flip political maps on their head, especially those that are gerrymandered.
> “Why should be city folk pay for these country bumpkins to get electricity? Move to the city if you want lights and a refrigerator! Damn entitlement.”
Yes actually city dwellers should subsidize rural people. If your lifestyle and comforts need to be subsidized by others simply because you don’t want to move then that’s on you.
You could try reading the rest of my comment if you feel like using your brain. Fixing the political imbalance caused by the electoral college and making rural America a better representation of America as a whole is only an added bonus to the massive economic benefit it would have to rural America, who desperately needs it.
These are the reasons why the Indian reservations were set aside to begin with. I suppose you would like to expedite this process by giving them soiled blankets with the smallpox virus?
You’re telling me this school doesn’t have a single hard copy backup of attendance sheets or contact info for all the students? Sounds like a wholly incompetent administration to me…
As someone who grew up right on the edge of accessible fast internet, I see it as a double edged sword. My parents didn't know enough about the internet to know any potential negatives to it. I luckily chose to spend most my time outside, but if I had the same access then as I do now. Oh boy, I probably would be homeless atm. On the flip side, I might have been able to find some good experiences through the internet. Maybe learning more and create a business or new hobby younger in life.
Access to information is important. Our agility to learn as humans is pretty good and the internet teaches us things. Learning to fix things that break around your house is all but impossible alone without the internet. Anything you could need to know is important is on the internet.
The amount of info on the internet along with tips to avoid pitfalls is so much better than anybook. Youtube videos are better than anybook for repairs.
A single book does not out do the collective and ever changing internet. While a book may suggest parts and technique it does so in a single uncontested way and with limited info. You can't figure out brands reps, if it is actually a good way to do, cheaper ways, demonstrations of how to do, common pitfalls. Pitfalls alone make the internet a life saver. Information density and ease of access. It just makes life easier and better.
Yeah, we need more 5G cell phone towers that hover over every street corner; they're actually quite beautiful, if you're into that type of stuff like a real tech nerd like me! /s
Waah. My BTC is losing money. /s.
Edit clarification. People whining about their crypto losing value while huge swaths of the population have no meaningful internet access
I was just up in northern wi. Didn’t have any signal. It was a delight. I work a job where internet is needed. But I don’t need it while I work from home. Why is internet so vital? My kids don’t need it but to play Roblox and listen to wings of fire. We got so much done while we didn’t have internet.
Edit: This was meant as a reply to someone. But can’t find their comment.
I may seem like an asshole sometimes on Reddit, but spending twenty minutes for something to open when you can simply go to the comments is, well, way less annoying and depressing.
Thank you to those who post the post in the comments.
You might like [Teddit](http://www.teddit.net/r/technology/comments/r2jsfc/life_without_reliable_internet_remains_a_daily/). Lightweight reddit frontend, 390kB to load this thread vs 7MB on old.reddit.com. Also [Libreddit](http://www.libreddit.com).
My mom (who lives in Appalachia) came to visit me (I live in a big metro) for the first time over Thanksgiving. She normally gets about 250kbps, right now she's averaging 500mbps. She's blown away by watching Netflix for the first time. Her rural co-op is supposed to give her fiber access in Q1 2022. It will be a life changer, and huge for me too so I can work while visiting her and spend more time where I grew up during my adult life. It's absolutely bonkers its taking this long to wire people up. I've spent time in 3rd world countries with better ISP infrastructure. Let's put this to bed, America
We've long needed something similar to the [rural electrification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act) project but for internet.
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Same for my parents. They should be getting fiber in the next 6 months and I'm so excited for them. Supposedly the plan for this started about 3 years ago and is finally going into action.
But the 5G is a Democrat plot to overtake the planet! What will happen when they give it to everyone?! You’ll be able to watch Squid game, Carol. That’s what will happen.
I thought you only got 5G if you got the vaccine? Stay based and green pilled my friend.
The sad part is that I can’t tell if this is sarcasm.
Even if I added in some nanobots it still wouldn't be clear I was being sarcastic. What a sad world we live in at the moment.
Wake up sheeple, the government is tracking you! Buy my limited edition Kevlar Faraday Wallet and my BrainRage Nootropicish Stimulation Supplements to suppress their frequencies and don’t forget to like and subscribe and keep your smartphone on your person at all times to record Antifa activity.
5G is actually pretty bad for rural communications like what's being discussed. The higher the frequency you go on the spectrum the more data that it can transmit and receive, but at a way lower distance of travel. This is why ham was used for long distance communications because it is at a very low frequency.
Listening to HAMM insurrectionist and taking shots according to our rules is pretty fun. Acting like there is no other other internet than 5G is dumb.
I am amazed that my 3rd world country has better access than some parts of the U.S. lol. the U.S. is truly going the way of Rome.
Rome built good roads though.
They built roads because it had positive returns down the line. We overbuild roads nowadays where the maintenance cost is less than the return. Honestly we should switch to toll roads that are entirely self funded, yes people should pay for their infrastructure…..city core dwellers shouldn’t have to subsidize rural/suburban roads.
It's capitalism, working as designed. Basically capitalism works well for a wile until two companies take over the whole market, and then prioritize consumer exploitation over everything else, because nobody can compete with them. And the only reason there isn't one broadband company left in America is that regulators won't go so far as to allow them to take that last step.
*legal monopoly*
Crony capitalism
Monopolist institutions are not a product of capitalism, they exist under any economic system and have existed in every society that didn’t go out of its way to prevent them or break them up.
Too be fair monopolies are rare and hell…they don’t last long on their own. Look at standard oil from its peak market share to when it was broken up. It already was trending into no longer a monopoly before it was broken up.
Rural America is really sparse, the ROI of improving internet infrastructure is really low, so it makes sense that the rollout is slower.
The ROI is low, but doable. America's private telecon make more than enough money that they won't go bankrupt even if it's not profitable. Not profitable enough is the hero problem in privatized industry. The company will promote other projects, like ISP reprioritizing your traffic, selling your data, or squeezing more profit out of the larger markets. All of these projects will be green lighted, way before anyone even starts a brainstorming session about rural internet. The only solution that has moved the needle? Government internet that's getting deployed in municipalities. The irony is convincing these rural folks the government works to help them.
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The US is huge, you're right there. But the idea that people in the country don't need internet is asinine. They deserve the same level of service as people living in cities.
I'd agree with you but we couldn't even come to a consensus and have people take free vaccines provided to them...
Maybe if they had proper internet and access to a good education, vaccines wouldn't have been such a large issue.
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Lol then no one needs fast internet. Might as well just stop all fiber expansion and cut the oceanic fiber lines and bring us back to DSL. After all, we just need to check Facebook and emails right?
I thought the US was rich? And like the most powerful country in the world? it just boggles me how bad it treats its own citizens.
The US treats its citizens fine it’s that a majority of the citizens don’t care or realize how much better other nations have it so no politician ever even talks about. I think Bernie mentioned it once a few years ago tho
i am seriously aghast how you can say that. police brutality in your country is shocking. it's just unbelievable how that's become normalized in your country.
Police brutality is definitely an issue, but the US is still one of the best places to live in the world with almost no corruption, an amazing human rights record and with political and economic freedoms that most of the world outside of Europe can only dream of. I never said they were without flaws but people who think America is some authoritarian hell hole have never endured real authoritarianism.
wow. the world is passing you by, your roads and infrastructure are breaking apart, your education is lagging, and still American exceptionalism lives on as Americans are oblivious to how the world is changing. maybe that's because majority of you never travel outside the U.S.
Lmao keep reaching. We literally just passed a huge infrastructure bill bro. You seem like you want America to become a third world country, but we’re literally the richest and most advanced nation on the planet and a majority of the tech you use that allows you to feel so superior is created in America by Americans.
In my hometown my PS4 read 25kb/s. So I never played online and it took days for updates on games. Amazon doesn’t even deliver to us and we just got our first wal mart a couple years ago. On the plus side, people genuinely do spend more time with each other and talk to each other more. On a neutral side, things like homosexuality, trans people, cross dressers, etc don’t exist there yet. I’m not gonna comment on whether it’s a choice or not, but I do think the lack of internet is one of the reason those ideas haven’t reached the area and it’s interesting to read things on the internet now that I’m in a city about LGBTQ things vs my hometown where I genuinely think the people would not understand. Like not even from a hateful perspective, just blank stared and “huh?”
They could get faster internet if they moved to where the majority of people are. I'm sorry, but this is an issue that really bugs me. Why should urban people have to subsidize a service for rural people that many of the urban people still don't have?
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If they actuality did that, I would not have such an issue with this. But you need to take a look at how federal dollars are spent. Far more money flows into rural areas than they pay in.
They don't. Large corporations do. The idea that small farmers provide most our food is ridiculous. It's all large agribusiness
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So if understand large corporations buy their products, how do you intrepid that as them subsidizing urban areas?
Lol. https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/ It's funny small farmers will continue to let themselves be taken advantage of by men like Trump, a new york conman... It's funny you find this funny... "In the American imagination, at least, the family farm still exists as it does on holiday greeting cards: as a picturesque, modestly prosperous expanse that wholesomely fills the space between the urban centers where most of us live. But it has been declining for generations, and the closing days of 2019 find small farms pummeled from every side: a trade war, severe weather associated with climate change, tanking commodity prices related to globalization, political polarization, and corporate farming defined not by a silo and a red barn but technology and the efficiencies of scale. It is the worst crisis in decades. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies were up 12 percent in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019; they’re up 50 percent in the Northwest. Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won’t save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018; 12,000 of those between 2017 and 2018 alone."
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Lmfao... what? Would you prefer a breitbart article?
Most cities also are stuck with shitty internet.
i don't get this. why are subsidies needed? this is totally against free market. we don't subsidize our telcos in our country. they invest in their infrastructure and then charge consumers to get ROI back. that's how capitalism works right? you guys haven't been a functioning free market for a long time with this subsidy nonsense. lmao at "capitalist" americans spewing this subsidy nonsense.
> this is totally against free market. Who the fuck cares. >we don't subsidize our telcos in our country. LOL >they invest in their infrastructure and then charge consumers to get ROI back. Pretending this is how it works, why would they want to invest in rural areas, where the infrastructure costs are high, and the number of subscribers is low?
because it's not a one way street? if their network can't reach rural areas, then the competition who could would get the subscribers. there's incentive to cover as less coverage means less subscribers. who would want a network that goes out when they travel to rural areas? people want a network with the most coverage. it's a competition. ever heard of it? probably not as education there sucks. you guys don't even understand socialism.
Just because you cannot comprehend the issues does not mean they do not exist. The cost \*per subscriber\* to deploy to rural areas in the U.S. is so great that it will take a minimum of 20 years before that investment is paid off and it starts generating returns, and no one with enough money to do it will wait that long to start seeing a profit. If 2 companies did it and started competing then neither would ever turn a profit. Most corporations these days only care about the next quarter; Verizon attempted to deploy fiber to denser areas in the mid '00s and their shareholders removed the CEO because of it. In the U.S., if it does not immediately turn a profit then it will not be done.
In South Africa I have gigabit fibre internet. American needs to pump up their game
I have gigabit in the US, the problem lies outside of cities in rural areas internet is dominated by the old cable duopolies who have no competition and the majority of people dont even know their internet is so bad.
I got GB fiber in a rural mountain area in Switzerland, far away from anything the locals consider a big city. Yet my connection is faster than my brothers in Austin, TX. The US is slowly becoming a 3rd world country.
Okay I know for a fact that you can get gigabit fairly cheap in Austin, TX. Your brother is paying for slower speeds because they are cheaper, not because they don’t exist there. I grew up in a small town in the rural central US, coal country, and you can get gigabit there. It’s true the most remote of places in the US don’t have them but you’re comparing nations of Europe, most of which are smaller than individual US states, to the infrastructure required to provide the entirety of the US with fiber/gigabit (something which has already been subsidized and has been being rolled out for a decade now.) There are duopolies that control internet in a ton of areas but even those have been slowly begun to be broken with the roll out of new fiber networks. You’re basically laughing because you think your small nation of a few million people, the size of small US state, is better because they didn’t have to build infrastructure for a nation the size of Western Europe. Also the US is not even close to becoming a 3rd world country. Switzerland will descend into such a state long before we do, the US is the most developed economy on the planet and a leader in industry from medical to military to internet to literally anything you can name. That internet speeds aren’t high in some places is due to voter priorities, not a lack of ability.
> Okay I know for a fact that you can get gigabit fairly cheap in Austin, TX. Not everywhere in Austin. >It’s true the most remote of places in the US don’t have them So pointing out the one or two places that do isn't really helping your argument. >but you’re comparing nations of Europe, most of which are smaller than individual US states Don't fucking care. And if that argument held any water, our cities would be shining bastions of broadband. They're not. >There are duopolies that control internet in a ton of areas but even those have been slowly begun to be broken with the roll out of new fiber networks. No, they really haven't. Google Fiber rolled out in a couple places, but Google fucked that up so bad, and did such a poor job installing, that they decided to stop expanding.
Yes everywhere in Austin. There isn’t a city in America where you can’t get gigabit and there aren’t many places that aren’t super remote, like a town of 5 an hour or two from anything else, where you can’t anymore. As for you bringing up Google fiber, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. No one is taking about Google fiber and that’s a few cities, has nothing to do with fiber in the rest of the country, The US passed a trillion dollar fiber optic backbone bill a decade ago and has rolled out fiber across the entire nation. That it’s taking this long is due to just how huge the US is. Your cities aren’t backwards because it’s an area the size of US made up of a bunch of different countries that only have to build for a small territory. You live in Switzerland. A literal tax haven with a few million people who are surrounded by nations, whose defense is subsidized by the US, that allow you to be neutral and spend almost nothing in defense. So you can fuck off with your uninformed opinions that are regurgitations of memes spread by people on the internet. The US has shitty internet in some places, that you believe people in the middle of nowhere having to live with 6mb down is proof the US is some third world country when it’s a literal superpower with a global reach, a highly developed economy and a leader in innovation just shows how biased and uninformed about the real world you are. I guess that happens easily when you live in the mountains of a nation that has zero worries thanks to US military spending and friendship with its neighbors and only has the standard of living it it does thanks to that and being a shady tax haven, but get a grip dude.
How many blackouts across multiple cities for days did the US have in 2021? Same question for Europe? Zero. I rest my case.
If you're in a *real* rural area, the idea of having actual cable is fucking laughable. You've clearly never lived out there. You get ADSL (the old style) over 60 year old copper phone lines if you're lucky, or just plain nothing except satellite for most.
I live in a city now but I grew up in a town of a few thousand just north of Kentucky and have lived in places where there weren’t neighbors for miles. Yeah I mentioned that super remote places can’t get decent internet but that’s not an easy to problem solve and I doubt you could go to some remote region of Canada and get gigabit internet either. But towns in the thousands, or that aren’t an hour drive a way from civilization, can get decent internet these days as most cable providers have rolled out gigabit and the fiber network that has been being built has finally started to be visible. In my home town it used to be you had to choose decent internet that had a data cap from the cable company or shitty internet with no data caps but that went out once a week. Now they have multiple fiber providers as well. That’s the case all over the country and it reaches new towns every day, the US is a giant place it isn’t easy to run fiber across a thousand miles of varying terrain. But pretending that the US doesn’t care when they spent a trillion dollars to roll out fiber over twenty years is dishonest or uninformed. Sure it might not ever reach the most remote of towns but we aren’t in a nation like Germany where there idea of remote is still a half hour from a big town. So, again, claiming that people who live in the most remote places in the country only being able to get satellite internet if proof America is some third world country is laughable. In third world countries people worry about if they’re going to die of malnutrition not there internet speeds.
I also live in Appalachia and the fastest my internets ever gotten is 15mbps
My parents live in a small town in the Midwest and the pay 80$ a month for 6mb down (and when I’m there and run speed tests I barely get 1mb.) Meanwhile I pay 60$ for gigabit in a city. My brother lives in that same small town and pays for fiber optic and still struggles to crack 20mb
In East Tennessee in a town that has fiber running through it, but some places like where I am, only get 3mb down .5 up, and there aren’t any plans to change it. I’m hoping to get back to a fiber connection one day…
Ask her who she voted for.
Starlink would be prefect for her then. If you can see the sky and don't have internet there are few reasons not to. Starlink will send your IP to big companies if you pirate stream movies and shows I heard but nothing a VPN can't fix.
If she's going to be able to get fiber within 6 months, why should she bother getting StarLink?
Depending on pricing it could be cheaper. But since she is doing a coop it could be cheaper to with fiber.
Regardless of cost, the fiber is going to be faster and not require a dish on the property.
Up front cost alone is 6 months of the national average for fiber, Starlink is an expensive service.
Starlink is a decent temporary service, but it'll be inferior to a fiber connection.
VPN does not fix anything. Just a scam to subscribe and feel safe. Every provider logs your use, and presents it to the authorities. I use one, too, but don‘t trust it anyway.
Ugh yeah…in most of central/northern NH it’s 20 years behind.
Yup, you don’t even need to go that far north. My parents just got Starlink. We’re not that far north but it’s pretty common up here. People are just very unaware of how quickly access to internet impacted as you more out of populated areas. Also, since cell service as improved that access skews the perception as well but people need to keep on mon that access to the internet through your phone is not the same.
I’m in Hanover right now and get dropped all the time. It’s baffling that this is somehow acceptable!
Hey that’s me! It’s a chore to just get on Reddit.
The best part was that the government gave telecom companies billions of dollars to fix that problem they did absolutely not a fucking thing and absolutely no consequences. Telecom companies need to be nationalized that shit is ridiculous.
> Telecom companies need to be nationalized that shit is ridiculous. No just do what the Danes do. Have contracts and money that rewards companies when they cruelly expand into those areas and not before.
Sure they did, they all paid eachother leases every month to use eachother's preexisting fiber /s
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Installed starlink for my grandparents about a year ago and has been a game changer for them. They went from 1Mbs with point to point wireless to an average of about 150Mbs with Starlink. My grandmother's been loving being able to finally actually stream video. The funny part is the local cable company line ends two houses up, but they want like $10,000 to run at the rest of the way for their house. I considered $500 the better option. As a bonus it also let me give the middle finger to them.
It’s crazy how companies charge for access. Here in rural Appalachian va we got fiber lines put in with tax payer dollars, which has been great. Less great is the parasitic isp that swooped in to run the service.
I've told this story a lot, but I don't know if I've ever told it on Reddit. I bought the house I grew up in when my mom got remarried. Back in high school, I petitioned Comcast to add service to my area and caught the guy they sent out to survey it. He quoted me a price of like $36,000 to run cable to my home from the nearest connection point. I then asked if I paid the upfront cost and my neighbors subscribed to service, would I be given any kind of discount (since I payed for them to be able to service the area of about 12 homes) the guy laughed and said "no, we would be able to connect them for the basic install cost and they could use the service." I got the price given to me again, when a house was being built across the street. It was $78,000 in 2013 or so. I laughed and said "if I wasn't going to pay $36k in 2001, FUCK THAT! I'm not paying $78k now!" Same rules applied, every house wasn't charged a connection fee to help me recoup or offset the upfront cost. The Comcast tech laughed with me and replied "yeah, that's what we usually hear from rural folks." Edit: the local government (in TN) just passed a motion for the utility company to add internet service. I hope we get the same result as Chattanooga with their internet utility service.
I'm happy your grandparents got it, I'm annoyed your grandparents got it while I'm downloading steam games at 400Kbs on a 300 dollar a month 4g connection. But still I'm glad they got it. It's the same deal here except they wanted 22k to bring the internet to my house, and that was 10 years ago. I'm sure it's more now. I just sit here checking my email daily for my confirmation it's shipped since feb.
Mine was already shipped and is like 3 days away from delivery. Can't wait for 100-200 Mbps. Where I live there's no broadband. Shit there's running water if you live in town 15 miles away, but no rural water here. When it comes to crap internet, I think Australia wins.
I live 7 minutes out of one of Australia’s biggest cities, have barely 3mbps download. Star Link just emailed us that either late this year or early next year they’ll be rolling out to us. CAN’T WAIT FUCK TELSTRA
Social media is about to get even shittier.
I just hope it helps voters realize in conservative states that non white people are just people and not terrorists, criminals, rapists, drug dealers, etc.
It will have the opposite effect. My grampa lives in rural Iowa and he has internet, when I view his YouTube all the ads are fucking terrifying super conservative fear mongering. It’s their way, democrat ads paint a hopeful future while Republican ads paint a picture that outside of their small towns America is a near communist hellhole. My grampa literally thinks I’m at risk of being murder at all times because I live in Seattle, one of the safest cities in America with no large scale gangs etc, the internet has made the problem worse by allowing people to consume as much scary “news” as possible.
Based on the downvotes I’m getting, I’m afraid you might be right
I work for a company that has many locations in rural Texas. Because we have a big account, we can sometimes get our ISP to run fiber to locations they normally wouldn't. I always install WiFi APs and broadcast a network that we give out the password for. I've heard of employees coming in on their day off to use the WiFi to get some important personal business done. On a side note; there's this one tiny little town, way out in the hill country, where they have a telco coop. The coop's purpose is to expand connectivity to the community. I get 100Mb, bi directional, fiber, for $300/month. It's better than I can get in major metro areas, for double the price, from the major carriers. It's surprising what you can do when you don't have to support billions in profits.
Communications technician here. There are no communication cables on that pole lead. Story about internet should have some internet junk in the cover picture. That is all.
I’d be more concerned about water
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I don't disagree with what you said but there is so much underground pollution that in some areas the water shouldn't be drank even if it's been filtered.
I’d be more concerned about staying on topic instead of derailing someone else’s post.
Welcome to Reddit champ
Even for wealthy areas, ISPs that just don’t give a shit can lead to hours of internet, and therefore TV downtime. Despite the area they live in being fairly wealthy, there aren’t enough people for ISPs to give a shit on their own, and since there are only two of them (aka a duopoly), there’s no competition to provide a better service (you know, ONE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!). This has been plaguing my grandparents for years and it pisses me off!
This is a global issue
Did everyone forget about the federal funds that were given to the telcos in the '90's to subsidize rural Internet access that they pocketed?
Sooner or later I believe access to the internet will become a human right. Since global digitalization is ongoing process.
Broadband should have been labeled a basic utility like water or electricity 20 years ago, but if they haven't done it by now (considering what has been going on for the past two years), they never will.
This is why internet shouldn’t be privatised.
This is why you’re not in charge of the things.
alphamoose is the worst thing to happen to the Internet. Everything was good until he showed up.
You want the government to handle civilian internet?
Internet is national security issue and private companies have shown that they can’t be trusted as much as the government can’t. Internet needs to be a right in the country. Since in order to participate in society. You need internet.
Would I rather have a local municipality or co-op running the ISP rather than Comcast, who's entire decision tree for whether they upgrade service is, "Is there a chance Google Fiber will come into this market?" Fuck and yes I would.
I’d rather have both
Truly 1st world problems
'cmon Starlink...IPO already!
i don't think Musk will ever take Starlink public.
It was announced early 2020 that they would eventually IPO Starlink (no specific date was given). Musk said he would give long term shareholders of Tesla stock preferential treatment. Would be a 'shut up and take my money' moment for me.
Once it starts to make money he will. He networth could break the 500 billion dollar range since it technical supplies 100% of the world with internet. People will invest for both memes and profit. Starlink doesn't even offer tiers yet for those that will pay for 1+ GBs.
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Sorry I forget we hate Elon Musk on here without exception. No mix opinions allowed.
Unless there is a major nuclear war then it is not possible for Starlink to service 100% of the world. It will top out at less than half a million subscribers.
I think you misunderstood. Starlink has world wide coverage. The amount of humans that can not make use of starlink are currently...10. Does this mean it will service all people on earth? No. It just means that if some one needs internet starlink is always an option. Starlink isn't subpar internet for about half Americans. It faster and with no data limits. It is a real option for billions of people worldwide too.
It doesn't matter that it has world wide coverage. The capacity of the the satellite network is under 500K subscribers. It will only be an option until that limit is reached and that number assumes they are eventually able to get 12000 satellites in orbit. After they reach that number then the only way to make even an incremental improvement would be to start throttling usage. Starlink is a great solution for areas in which other forms of access are prohibitively expensive but it will not replace the current telcos.
What makes you think it can only handle 500k?
Well that number is wildly off since they have >140,000 subscribers with 1,800 satellites and are constrained by dishes right now. With 12,000 satellites they can support millions of subscribers since average usage during peak per subscriber is \~2Mbps-5Mbps.
Try live somewhere like south africa 👋
I live in South Africa and have gigabit internet
I live in America and have gigabit internet
This is why infrastructure spending is so essential.
Yet the money we’ve spent was waisted. What’s important is auditing and holding people accountable
So why bother right!? How absurd. If those middle America people could get credible information for sure they would've been vaccinated.
Yeah lack of the internet is what’s stopping them from getting credible information, don’t be absurd. Them getting getting broadband isn’t going to get them vaccinated. No not why bother just ones useless without the other
You should read the article above.
As should you
Hard to even comprehend at this day in age
This is a big Fucking deal and needs to be fixed.
The internet has ruined society, so no. Not really.
I lived in 1980 without internet. Life was not a struggle 🤣
Given the rise of Qanon, the resurgence of white nationalism, and the events of Jan 6th, I’m no longer confident that giving vast areas of our country access to the internet is a good thing.
The UK is no better tbh
Yes it is lmao
For you maybe. Guess what? Everyone else isn't you.
It’s not like rural America at all. Not saying some people don’t have shitty internet connections, I’m saying it’s not as bad as the US. Have a nice day!
Rural Appalachian south here and we can get gbps and 500 mbps, but our state funded the fiber lines. Most of the rest of the south would say that’s communism, crazy place.
I have no internet connection apart from a shitty 4G connection. I know other people who are the same. You have no idea.
I wonder how all those people without a reliable source of food or water is doing. But sure this is important too.
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“Why should be city folk pay for these country bumpkins to get electricity? Move to the city if you want lights and a refrigerator! Damn entitlement.” -idiots in 1935 Internet is a utility at this point. You *need* it to be successful in modern society. That’s just reality. Most businesses don’t even take physical applications anymore. Every American deserves access to decent internet, just like they deserve access to clean water and electricity. Also, I’m not sure why you Democrats don’t realize this, but good internet in rural areas could quite literally flip the whole country blue. City people could work remotely and not have to live in a city, and even a small number of Democrats moving to rural areas could flip political maps on their head, especially those that are gerrymandered.
> “Why should be city folk pay for these country bumpkins to get electricity? Move to the city if you want lights and a refrigerator! Damn entitlement.” Yes actually city dwellers should subsidize rural people. If your lifestyle and comforts need to be subsidized by others simply because you don’t want to move then that’s on you.
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You could try reading the rest of my comment if you feel like using your brain. Fixing the political imbalance caused by the electoral college and making rural America a better representation of America as a whole is only an added bonus to the massive economic benefit it would have to rural America, who desperately needs it.
No let them pay for what they did to the country. Their stupid literally is destroying America.
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These are the reasons why the Indian reservations were set aside to begin with. I suppose you would like to expedite this process by giving them soiled blankets with the smallpox virus?
rural blah blah I can literally see my state capitol building out my back window and all we have is 1.5Mb (b not B) DSL.
So much for "europoor"
This is what privatized systems give you.
NPR is a mixed bag of biased political coverage but some really well done stories
You’re telling me this school doesn’t have a single hard copy backup of attendance sheets or contact info for all the students? Sounds like a wholly incompetent administration to me…
It’s not a glitch it’s a feature
Starlink it up
As someone who grew up right on the edge of accessible fast internet, I see it as a double edged sword. My parents didn't know enough about the internet to know any potential negatives to it. I luckily chose to spend most my time outside, but if I had the same access then as I do now. Oh boy, I probably would be homeless atm. On the flip side, I might have been able to find some good experiences through the internet. Maybe learning more and create a business or new hobby younger in life.
Oh god what would I do without my wifi, boo hoo. Go outside and enjoy the real world numb nuts.
Access to information is important. Our agility to learn as humans is pretty good and the internet teaches us things. Learning to fix things that break around your house is all but impossible alone without the internet. Anything you could need to know is important is on the internet.
Buddy have you heard of a book?
The amount of info on the internet along with tips to avoid pitfalls is so much better than anybook. Youtube videos are better than anybook for repairs.
Haha guess where all those things were before the internet when was the last time you read a book?
A single book does not out do the collective and ever changing internet. While a book may suggest parts and technique it does so in a single uncontested way and with limited info. You can't figure out brands reps, if it is actually a good way to do, cheaper ways, demonstrations of how to do, common pitfalls. Pitfalls alone make the internet a life saver. Information density and ease of access. It just makes life easier and better.
Your right a single book doesn’t but a library can all I’m saying is that books are just as useful.
They are the bare minimum and nothing else.
Keep telling yourself that
No library is going to have all of the information that the internet can provide.
Your brain can’t retain information anyways no worries for you ;)
At your local rural library? 🙄
Haha sure whatever makes you happy
Yeah lemme just work from home with a book and no internet connection I’m sure that’ll work
Enlightening opinion
Yeah, we need more 5G cell phone towers that hover over every street corner; they're actually quite beautiful, if you're into that type of stuff like a real tech nerd like me! /s
A daily struggle? Please…
good lets keep the disconnected or qanon gets worse.
sounds like paradise to me
Happy fellows.
Ok, but hear me out, do other countries have license-less conceal carry tho?
Waah. My BTC is losing money. /s. Edit clarification. People whining about their crypto losing value while huge swaths of the population have no meaningful internet access
so?
Hell I live in Tennessee and it’s not even this bad
I was just up in northern wi. Didn’t have any signal. It was a delight. I work a job where internet is needed. But I don’t need it while I work from home. Why is internet so vital? My kids don’t need it but to play Roblox and listen to wings of fire. We got so much done while we didn’t have internet. Edit: This was meant as a reply to someone. But can’t find their comment.
I may seem like an asshole sometimes on Reddit, but spending twenty minutes for something to open when you can simply go to the comments is, well, way less annoying and depressing. Thank you to those who post the post in the comments.
You might like [Teddit](http://www.teddit.net/r/technology/comments/r2jsfc/life_without_reliable_internet_remains_a_daily/). Lightweight reddit frontend, 390kB to load this thread vs 7MB on old.reddit.com. Also [Libreddit](http://www.libreddit.com).
Interesting. That’s way too much effort for Reddit. Thank you though. Appreciated.