Discussion elsewhere has gotten me thinking about this. More and more, the Internet is an important, if not vital, part of daily life. Yet it is still seen in many quarters, justifiably or not, as an optional luxury.
Where do you think 'Net access, no matter how you get it, falls in the necessity v. luxury scale? How long before it’s on the necessity end, if it’s not already? When will people stop seeing it as a luxury? How will society change, if at all, when that happens (vis a vis the poor, for example, and their ability to participate in an important part of modern society)?
(Note that some argue that cell phones also fit all of this. Feel free to address if you like.)
I can’t imagine being without internet or a cellphone. I think for most people the internet is a necessity. Pay bills, shop, bank, communicate. The only people I know personally that don’t have internet and feel its a luxury are elderly and don’t seem to understand it.
The internet has changed life as we know it. When I was a kid if you were curious about a subject you had to walk (or bike) the your small town library and hope they had a book on the subject that wasn’t hopelessly out of date.
The vast amount of information readily available today will put someone without access at an almost hopeless disadvantage. We scorn wikipedia but as a jumping off point for investigating a subject a student needs to learn it’s almost impossible to overestimate it’s utility.
Couple that with the fact that most social services now have an online presence. Imagine you and I live next to each other in a depressed neighborhood and are both out of work, depending upon social programs to get back on our feet. If you need to go to some office 3 bus rides away to try to find a job, and I can look at a dozen jobs in an hour online, I’m at a distinct advantage.
I don’t know if it is a neccessity, but it definitely is a commodity as opposed to a specialized luxury item. And it’s priced more like a commodity now than it was years ago.
I’m sure there are plenty of people that get along fine without the internet, just as I’m sure there are lots of people that get along well without televisions. But the market saturation of those that have access to the internet (something like 70% of American homes have high speed internet access in their homes) has driven pricing down significantly, making it more affordable.
It’s definitely not a neccessity like food and water.
If I tried hard enough, I could probably make the case that Internet access was a necessity even before it was available. At least, I can think of times in my own life during the 1980s and 90s when I “needed” the Internet without really knowing it.
That’s the same argument I have been making about universal replicators. They are a basic necessity but haven’t really been invented yet. I think it is discrimination that I am prevented from having basic necessities just because of the year I was born.
For my job? A necessity. For my free time? A luxury. I know this because when I moved into my apartment, I timed it poorly and it took 4 days for Comcast to send me internet and I survived. It was a struggle; but I made it.
When I lived in Albuquerque, I didn’t have a telephone. A friend remarked that in that day and age, not having a phone was like not having shoes. I don’t know if not having the Intrernet is quite to that point yet, but it’s getting there.
You cannot get a job application at Burger King any more. They have a delicatessen-style paper pull tab machine that dispenses tickets with the URL of the web site you have to visit to apply for the job.
So yeah, if you can’t get a minimum-wage job flipping burgers without Internet access, it is a necessity.
If all you do on it is play World of Warcraft or something, of course it’s a luxury. For most people who regularly use the Internet, it’s a necessity.
When I had a toddler and was taking classes online, I had people (online people, obviously) tell me I should just go to the library to use the computers there, and sell my POS computer (I’d have been lucky to get someone to take it for free) and cancel my dialup. Never mind that it would have cost me a lot more money to take the bus to the library several times a week, and that’s not even figuring in the cost of childcare. And that was 10 years ago. Now I use it for so many more non-entertainment things than I even did then.
Your willpower is an inspiration to us all. I, at least, had the benefit of my workplace’s internet for 8 hours a day. On a business trip, I suspect I’d crack much sooner.
Basic necessity, no. But to maintain a job or conduct some business it is, and probably will become more so. But it is a luxury in the primary sense no matter what. Pretty much everything is that you don’t need to live for the next 24 hours. We live such easy lives most people have forgotten what a luxury actually is. Here’s a reminder.
How can you even remotely count them? They have literally decided to separate themselves from this society into their own little group. They are their own society, and quite frankly, I don’t want to live in their insular little group.
If you are going to live in the broader part of society, I’d say internet is/will be at least as necessary as the telephone. That is, you can survive without it but your options will be severely curtailed.
From a personal standpoint, it’s a luxury, but a very important one. If I had to choose, I’d keep internet over TV any day…even during football season.
From a small business owner perspective, it is absolutely a necessity. Damn near everything I do involves the internet…I get clients from my website and various online directories, electronic filing is required in my local federal courts (but thankfully not in state courts, yet). Checking dockets, legal research, quick communication with other lawyers, some judges, some court clerks…all online.