Although the example I just gave is certainly a tragedy, it is just one of many examples of how much worse life can be in poor countries; since there are also numerous public health disparities, and the GDP of these countries is lower (meaning that many people cannot even afford to buy computers, let alone access the internet), I think it may be easy for some people living in the first world to lump the disparity in the third world’s access to knowledge as just one more example of a global disparity between rich and poor countries.

But what about the disparity within our very own country?

Susan Crawford’s recent op-ed piece on “The New Digital Divide” is particularly illuminating for me because it opens the reader up to the growing disparity within the United States. Crawford writes,

“_While we still talk about the Internet, we increasingly have two separate access marketplaces: high-speed wired and second-class wireless. High-speed access is a superhighway for those who can afford it, while racial minorities and poorer and rural Americans must make do with a bike path._”

Crawford raises the point that in thirty years, the very African-Americans and Latinos, whose access to knowledge is being stifled by the interest groups that keep high-speed internet unnecessarily expensive and inaccessible, will make up more than half of the US workforce. She also invokes a ‘good is the enemy of the best’ argument, explaining how (relatively cheaper) access to smartphones will provide poor Americans with enough internet access to survive, but leaving them unable to take advantage of the whole slew of information that requires high-speed wired internet, such as online job interviews, educational programs, healthcare, politics, and entertainment.

Throughout this course we have discussed how dispersed internet access (i.e. having thousands of wifi hotspots instead of a mobile data connection) was effectively killed by the telecommunications lobby, who have fought for the “broadcast” structure we currently have in place even though it is more expensive and less efficient. Crawford elaborates on this point, explaining how lobbying in the cable markets has resulted in monopolistic structures that allow each operator to extract significant rents and make the rest of the country (which cannot afford to pay these rents) increasingly worse off.

What is the solution?

A complete “best-case” solution requires a complete overhaul of the broadcast structure we currently have in place, which, in turn, requires the dismantling of powerful corporate self-interest groups that have lobbied so hard to increase the digital divide.

However I think it is also important to consider some possible short-term solutions that could be deployed in the mean time, particularly for education and employment.

1. Education.

Internet classrooms are becoming increasingly commonplace, and as my last post discussed, a student no longer needs to spend a lot of money in order to receive a high-quality education. Even the “certification” process is increasingly moving online, allowing people to save money to earn a degree, and not letting factors such as one’s location stand in the way of a high-quality education. The problem is that accessing online videoconferencing and even lectures often requires fast internet, which many people cannot afford.

Possible short-term solution: It is obviously in the government’s interest to promote education, and several private foundations and scholarships exist to financially support students who want to attend universities, but who cannot afford the expensive tuition. Suppose that instead of receiving financial aid to attend a four-year university, a student instead received a certain number of ‘credits’ (sponsored by the government or universities), which gave the student access to high-speed online educational lectures or classrooms at his/her local public library, high school, or university. Future credits would be awarded based on the student’s performance. This could be extended to start at the middle school and high school level, so that a student’s potential scholarship to a university could be based on the student’s online educational performance, and the number of credits the student earned.

2. Employment.

Job interviews are increasingly moving online, and many job applications are only available online. The reason for this shift is mainly that it is cheaper and more efficient for the employer to screen applicants this way. Almost all employers, however, want to maximize the number of qualified applications they receive for a position, even if the applicant is not wealthy enough to afford high-speed Internet.

Possible short-term solution: The bigger employers (who hire the most people), including the government, could sponsor or subsidize “job application centers” in central areas, where high-speed internet would be made available exclusively for the use of job applications and interviews. This kind of sponsorship would serve two purposes: (1) it would be good PR for the employer; (2) it would allow the employer to receive a higher number of qualified applications, even from those people who may have otherwise not been able to afford an application, because of the requirement of expensive high-speed internet access.

Conclusion:

I could invoke similar ‘short-term’ solutions for access to online healthcare, by allowing insurance providers or the government to sponsor ‘centers’ where patients could use high-speed internet exclusively to communicate with doctors, saving both the patients and providers money in the long run and improving access. The bigger question, however, is whether these “good” short-term solutions would end up precluding the kind of long-run “best” reformation that is necessary to truly allow free information to flow to all citizens of the global economy. If so, it remains unclear whether the short-term benefits of the solutions I proposed are justified.

-- OmarHaroun - 21 Dec 2011

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