Our Technology Future - The Internet, Part One

Yesterday it may have seemed like I was ragging on Project Loon, but that wasn’t really the case. I actually do think it is a novel and ambitious idea. It is a very good idea for solving a precise problem. So that will be my first discussion in this series of posts on technology and society.

The timing is a little funny since just yesterday Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg also came out with his own initiative with the goal of getting internet access to every man, woman, and child on the planet. In his introduction of this initiative, Mr. Zuckerburg touts as one of its benefits as bringing healthcare to those who don’t have it.

The power of the internet is incredible. Obviously you and I are using it right now. And that was always the point. The power of the internet is in its ability to connect people to information, and moreover people to other people. Through the internet people can educate themselves about an array of topics – virtually any topic they can think of. Through this education they can become empowered enough that they can find a means of bettering their situation. They can understand issues of government from a different perspective, learn how to start a business, learn about how to take care of their health.

Sci-fi has an interesting take on the power of the internet. One classic example is the somewhat childish idea that we will all one day have a chip in our heads that streams us all the information we need instead of having to go to school to learn. A little less “out there” is something like from the anime “Eden of the East” or this season’s “Gatchaman Crowds”, where in you have systems that can readily identify anything caught in the camera of a mobile device and give a bevy of information on it (Eden) or in the event of an accident or emergency those with the necessary skills to assist in the situation are immediately alerted (Gatchaman).

These are not completely out of reach. The system created in Eden of the East is a lot like Google Glass is envisioned to be. Even the QR code scanning function in Smartphones is already being implemented at museums and parks and monuments so that all you have to do is scan that code and instantly you have a suite of information. The Galax system in Gatchaman Crowds is likewise not in of itself terribly more sophisticated than something like Facebook or Twitter is right now. All those social media portals are missing is the control apparatus to be able to alert someone in proximity to an event that there is a situation in which their skill set, as they themselves have identified on their account, is in need.

But the internet is not a panacea to all our problems. Indeed, as I noted in yesterday’s post, the internet is not even a first step.

First, simply enabling the ability to connect to the internet doesn’t automatically make every person a maven of the web. For a hefty portion of those that will gain access to the internet, they will have little to no practical use for it. Farmers who have been tilling the land and sowing seed for all their lives, the same as their parents before them, and their parents before them, are not bound to quickly decide for themselves that they are going to abide by recommendations from some random person on a blog or webpage. How do they know what pages to trust? How do they decide which sites give good information and which give out garbage? Most of us either learned by trial and error, or by recommendation of our friends and families. Imagine how this will play out then in some country or village where they haven’t ever had internet… it will take a long time for the internet to even be considered worth bothering with rather than a nuisance.

Second, some problems simply can’t be helped by the internet. Not having electricity where you live makes even using the internet fairly difficult I would think, but even further will do little to fix that actual problem. It isn’t going to stop a war, or dissuade despots from using violence to control people. The internet, in time, could help in teaching better farming, but it isn’t going to save a place from drought or restore fisheries that have already been over-fished. The internet may tell you all about a disease or virus, but it isn’t going to get you the medicine needed to cure yourself or your family.

People often misquote the parable about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. Rather, it’s not so much that it is misquoted per se, as much as it is often taken out of context. In the full parable, the man is actually given a fish, while being taught to fish. You see, the difference between adding that little bit and the way most tend to quote the parable, is that it recognizes the immediacy of a problem. Yes, you need to teach people how to solve their own problems, not just hand out solutions. That is what I think the push is behind project’s like Facebook’s or Google’s Loon. However, before you teach a starving man to fish, it would help if he weren’t starving to death. It isn’t an either/or scenario – teach to fish or give a fish. The morale of the parable isn’t that people need to stop asking for handouts, it’s that people giving to others need to think a little beyond the immediacy of the issue. The man’s problem was he needed to eat. Give him a fish and he’s satisfied for now, but he’ll be hungry again tomorrow. Teach him to fish and that fish you just gave him gets him through the day, and the skills he’s given help him the rest of his life.

Thus, herein lies the problem I see right now with projects to spread the internet; you’re not even teaching them to fish so much as giving them premium bait and telling them they have to fish. Sure, with premium bait one could in theory catch lots and lots of fish. But without being equipped with a fishing rod (internet connected device) or any knowledge on how to keep or sustain your equipment (infrastructure and repair services for devices) let alone the skills to use the equipment, the premium bait is all but useless.

In his announcement, Zuckerberg indicated that only about a third of the world has access to the internet right now. I haven’t seen the details on how he arrived at that figure, but here are a few other things to consider. Last year the FCC announced a plan to allow the more than half of U.S households without internet access to get internet access. That plan does not promise to get all of those households internet, but involves alleviating one of the barriers, which is the cost of internet itself. The plan allows those on government assistance – those below the poverty line – to pay a low price, in the area of $10 a month, for high speed internet service at around 2 Mbps. The Lifeline Broadband Program is only in the pilot phase, but is modeled in the same general mold as a similar program that helps low-income families get home phone and cell phone service.

As I’ve alluded to a number of times already, even supposing you allow users free access, there still is the problem of the device to connect to the internet with. You get to large portions of Africa where there is hardly reliable electricity, where clean water is hard to come by, where many people work as grunt labor or subsistence farming and earn very, very, little money, there is no way they would have the means of purchasing a computer or smartphone. If something goes wrong with the device there is little option for repairs.

The lack of even the basic systems to begin an economic cycle around computers is so minimal that such a system is highly unlikely to get going with any real earnest or effect for the broader community in such a situation. That economic system is one method through which to uplift a community to get them to a point where the power of the internet is a viable tool for solving their problems; improve the economic situation such that individuals have enough discretionary spending to buy computers and sprout up an industry around them that can spread and grow to create more growth.

But to do all of that, there are other problems that must be solved first. Therefore, while I do think there is an admirable goal in trying to spread internet access globally to those who are currently unable to access it, the timing of such a project seems to be like running before you can walk. Many of the very problems that are limiting their ability to gain access to the internet are not ones that will soon disappear, and may very well limit any use that the internet does offer.

That being said, there are without a doubt many areas that can benefit from these initiatives from Facebook and Google. The Google Fiber project too is a bold idea that holds many benefits. It pushes the bounds of existing internet infrastructure and challenges the advancement of the technology. Not every place in the world lacking reliable internet is in a dire situation with crushing problems. Their problems are relatively minor and can be aided greatly by bringing them reliable internet access.

I think the suggestion that these projects will literally bring internet to everyone is a bit of hyperbole to bring clout and attention to the project. Realistically these projects will be phased in where they can have the most immediate impact. From a business standpoint it simply makes sense that a project be made to show its merit before it be rolled out on a large scale. Places like parts of New Zealand, parts of China, places where there is at least some relative stability of basic services and where there is an appreciable part of the population with the income to spur on a positive economic cycle based around the internet, or otherwise foster ideas borne from it, are where such projects should focus first. 

There is no harm immediately apparent in allowing such projects to roll forward wherever they may want to go. My only point is that there should not be an overestimation of the effect that will be had. Access to the internet is the least of their problems in Darfur, Sudan, the Congo. Time, money, effort would be best spent settling other issues first.