# Which new tech has impressed you the most over the last 5 years?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-new-tech-has-impressed-you-the-most-over-the-last-5-years/984884>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 1, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-new-tech-has-impressed-you-the-most-over-the-last-5-years/984884 "2023-06-01T18:11:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 45

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-new-tech-has-impressed-you-the-most-over-the-last-5-years/984884/45 "2023-06-03T15:39:18Z")

</div>

> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> So there’s no expectation that individuals will be paying that much.

I’m not just talking about individuals. See my example of Indian schools in the other thread - I’ve already addressed the idea that even most groups or community spaces will have the spare cash for this. The only ones you see in online articles are funded pilot projects.

And of the ones that do have actual cash, do you think they’re going to just give their bandwidth away? So individual people are still going to need cash.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the other issues I raised in the other thread:

> [@What’s going to be a problem in 25 years, but people are choosing to ignore now?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-going-to-be-a-problem-in-25-years-but-people-are-choosing-to-ignore-now/979356/159):
>
> What’s the use of “cheap” internet, without the devices to connect to it or the power to run those devices?

You haven’t even _looked_ at the Dollar Street link I provided in my last post, have you?

Do so now - See a lot of internet-capable devices in those homes? Hell, see much electricity?

And how much time do you think a rural African family is going to have to hang around the local internet cafe, [when they spend **two hours a day fetching water** and **three hours a day collecting firewood**](https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/families/nidikumwami)? These people literally live of $43/month…

> The family grows 95% of its food, but almost all of their income is spent on buying the rest 5% of their food

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-new-tech-has-impressed-you-the-most-over-the-last-5-years/984884)._