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Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware,

Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware, surveillance etc. but with most good things, comes a few bad things. Overall though, Internet has been tremendous in lifting so many people out of poverty AND creating jobs that otherwise people could not dream of before the internet. I can work for anyone over the internet and make money for myself and my family. I can communicate with family members and friends across continents. With all the hate social media gets for example, imagine a life without them again. I say this as someone who hardly uses it but knows that it is there if I want to communicate with someone I care about. Do you really want to send physical letters again ? Yes they have their charm and nostalgia but I am not willing to trade the convenience of internet for something worse or outdated. So Thank you for creating the internet all you tremendous people. I personally wouldn't trade it. Can we fix a few things ? Sure we can. But it has not gone wrong. It has changed lives, mine included for the better.

agumonkey 7y ago
I won't go too heretic on internet, but I think it kicked the old structure too hard and too early.
Swizec 7y ago
If it weren’t for the internet I’d be back home making an average $20,000/year. Instead I’m in SF on an SF salary. Hell, without the internet I wouldn’t even have known it’s possible to get here. Both physically and in mindset. qed
- Toine 7y ago
  Are you happy ?
  - rock_hard 7y ago
    I am in in the same situation and am very, very happy! I was so depressed before I came to Silicon Valley...it took years of therapy to overcome that
- notzuck 7y ago
  Same story here but that alone doesn't mean anything. Just because it worked out well for me that doesn't mean anything. I watch as my Grandad gets told to go online to pay his bill by the gas company and he has no clue what to do, then he gets letters from debt collection agencies because it's too hard to figure out how to pay using another method. This kind of thing also happens to lower class poor people in the UK. Some level of phone or internet savvy is assumed for many services now. Side note: I'm in a hotel room right now overlooking San Fran as the morning traffic starts to pick up. It really is a shit-hole city.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  What are the costs of living back home for you? For instance, $20k/year is a very decent upper-middle class salary in Poland.
  - Swizec 7y ago
    In Slovenia we have a joke: A German and a Slovenian talk about life and work. The German says, "You know, life's pretty good. I make 5k a month, send my kids to school, put 2k in my mortgage, spend 1k on groceries, and there's plenty left over" And the Slovenian says "Wow that's cool. What happens with the other 2k?" "Oh we don't ask that in Germany. It's impolite" So the SLovenian goes "Ah that's nice. We got it good in Slovenia too. I make 2k a month, send my kids to school, put 1.5k in my mortgage, 1k for groceries, and still got enough for a 500 payment on my Audi" "Wait ... where's the extra 1k coming from?" "We don't ask that in Slovenia. It's impolite"
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  I taught myself how to program through the internet, which is the only reason I have a job right now. The internet also let me discover cryptocurrencies which is the only reason I have a house at a young age. As far as I'm concerned it's an objective fact that the internet helps motivated people multiply their wealth in ways that were not possible prior to its creation.
jrochkind1 7y ago
I don't understand your theory of how the internet has "lifted so many people out of poverty". I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Created jobs, increased global trade, allowed for people to teach themselves, new types of products available, higher awareness about what is going on around you, technology share, open source, free products etc.
  - jrochkind1 7y ago
    OK. Except for possibly "created jobs", it's not obvious to me most of those things lead to "lifting so many people out of poverty." (For instance, I suspect very strongly that "new types of products available" has nothing to do with lifting people out of poverty). I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things, and it lifted so many people out of poverty. (For starters, I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not!)
    - _jgdh 7y ago
      Increasing global trade leads to better outcomes for those producing those goods. The greatest alleviation of poverty and creation of the largest middle class in the history of humanity happened in China starting the early 90s and that was fuelled by increased global trade made possible partly by the Internet.
    - airstrike 7y ago
      > I suspect very strongly that "new types of products available" has nothing to do with lifting people out of poverty Your suspicion is wrong. GDP per capita has increased significantly in emerging markets where cheap labor creates these "new types of products", with China being the prominent example > I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not! That is a well known fact, you'll just have to google it. > I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things There are countless analyses on the benefits of globalization which was enabled in part by the advance of near-instantaneous telecommunication
UKServant 7y ago
> surveillance Just the tip of the iceberg, the security services facilitate the criminal underworld playing its part keep GDP up, lots of experiments being done on people individually right now, most of it messing with peoples belief systems which in extreme you see with muslim terrorists carrying out acts. I know I've had similar done to me. Jimmy Saville was a state apparatus intelligence tool, nothing more nothing less and look at how the state labels him a pedo now!
petra 7y ago
Before the internet, many people only worried, economically, from people in their immediate sorrounding. Often only in their city. Knowledge was much harder to ackuire and more valuable, and it was harder to compare prices. That led to an environment where many, both business owners and employees could akuire some valuable competitive advantage, and make a decent living. Now that's much harder. Significant competitive advantage(or significant bargaining power) rarely exists, for most. Most have little economic power. And psychologically that's probably more important than relative wealth.
pastor_elm 7y ago
Capitalism creates jobs. The internet is just something Capitalism latched on to.
JohnFen 7y ago
> With all the hate social media gets for example, imagine a life without them again. I can imagine that easily. I know others differ, but is all social media went away tomorrow, my life would be none the poorer for it.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Its almost like most of us still remember life without the internet let alone social media. I just personally stopped. I use reddit sometimes but otherwise I have been much happier for it.
andrepd 7y ago
>With all the hate social media gets for example, imagine a life without them again. Easy, that's my life right now >I say this as someone who hardly uses it but knows that it is there if I want to communicate with someone I care about. Do you really want to send physical letters again ? Yes they have their charm and nostalgia but I am not willing to trade the convenience of internet for something worse or outdated. That all fits in the original, "utopian" if you want, view of the internet espoused in the article. You can do that with email, IMs like IRC, personal webpages. Facebook-style social media, with its surveillance, addictiveness, toxic feedback loops, is irrelevant to this task.

agumonkey 7y ago

I won't go too heretic on internet, but I think it kicked the old structure too hard and too early.

Swizec 7y ago

If it weren’t for the internet I’d be back home making an average $20,000/year. Instead I’m in SF on an SF salary. Hell, without the internet I wouldn’t even have known it’s possible to get here. Both physically and in mindset. qed

Toine 7y ago
Are you happy ?
- rock_hard 7y ago
  I am in in the same situation and am very, very happy! I was so depressed before I came to Silicon Valley...it took years of therapy to overcome that
notzuck 7y ago
Same story here but that alone doesn't mean anything. Just because it worked out well for me that doesn't mean anything. I watch as my Grandad gets told to go online to pay his bill by the gas company and he has no clue what to do, then he gets letters from debt collection agencies because it's too hard to figure out how to pay using another method. This kind of thing also happens to lower class poor people in the UK. Some level of phone or internet savvy is assumed for many services now. Side note: I'm in a hotel room right now overlooking San Fran as the morning traffic starts to pick up. It really is a shit-hole city.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
What are the costs of living back home for you? For instance, $20k/year is a very decent upper-middle class salary in Poland.
- Swizec 7y ago
  In Slovenia we have a joke: A German and a Slovenian talk about life and work. The German says, "You know, life's pretty good. I make 5k a month, send my kids to school, put 2k in my mortgage, spend 1k on groceries, and there's plenty left over" And the Slovenian says "Wow that's cool. What happens with the other 2k?" "Oh we don't ask that in Germany. It's impolite" So the SLovenian goes "Ah that's nice. We got it good in Slovenia too. I make 2k a month, send my kids to school, put 1.5k in my mortgage, 1k for groceries, and still got enough for a 500 payment on my Audi" "Wait ... where's the extra 1k coming from?" "We don't ask that in Slovenia. It's impolite"
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
tuesdayrain 7y ago
I taught myself how to program through the internet, which is the only reason I have a job right now. The internet also let me discover cryptocurrencies which is the only reason I have a house at a young age. As far as I'm concerned it's an objective fact that the internet helps motivated people multiply their wealth in ways that were not possible prior to its creation.

jrochkind1 7y ago

I don't understand your theory of how the internet has "lifted so many people out of poverty". I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.

ThomPete 7y ago
Created jobs, increased global trade, allowed for people to teach themselves, new types of products available, higher awareness about what is going on around you, technology share, open source, free products etc.
- jrochkind1 7y ago
  OK. Except for possibly "created jobs", it's not obvious to me most of those things lead to "lifting so many people out of poverty." (For instance, I suspect very strongly that "new types of products available" has nothing to do with lifting people out of poverty). I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things, and it lifted so many people out of poverty. (For starters, I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not!)
  - _jgdh 7y ago
    Increasing global trade leads to better outcomes for those producing those goods. The greatest alleviation of poverty and creation of the largest middle class in the history of humanity happened in China starting the early 90s and that was fuelled by increased global trade made possible partly by the Internet.
  - airstrike 7y ago
    > I suspect very strongly that "new types of products available" has nothing to do with lifting people out of poverty Your suspicion is wrong. GDP per capita has increased significantly in emerging markets where cheap labor creates these "new types of products", with China being the prominent example > I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not! That is a well known fact, you'll just have to google it. > I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things There are countless analyses on the benefits of globalization which was enabled in part by the advance of near-instantaneous telecommunication

UKServant 7y ago

> surveillance Just the tip of the iceberg, the security services facilitate the criminal underworld playing its part keep GDP up, lots of experiments being done on people individually right now, most of it messing with peoples belief systems which in extreme you see with muslim terrorists carrying out acts. I know I've had similar done to me. Jimmy Saville was a state apparatus intelligence tool, nothing more nothing less and look at how the state labels him a pedo now!

petra 7y ago

Before the internet, many people only worried, economically, from people in their immediate sorrounding. Often only in their city. Knowledge was much harder to ackuire and more valuable, and it was harder to compare prices. That led to an environment where many, both business owners and employees could akuire some valuable competitive advantage, and make a decent living. Now that's much harder. Significant competitive advantage(or significant bargaining power) rarely exists, for most. Most have little economic power. And psychologically that's probably more important than relative wealth.

pastor_elm 7y ago

Capitalism creates jobs. The internet is just something Capitalism latched on to.

JohnFen 7y ago

> With all the hate social media gets for example, imagine a life without them again. I can imagine that easily. I know others differ, but is all social media went away tomorrow, my life would be none the poorer for it.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Its almost like most of us still remember life without the internet let alone social media. I just personally stopped. I use reddit sometimes but otherwise I have been much happier for it.

andrepd 7y ago

>With all the hate social media gets for example, imagine a life without them again. Easy, that's my life right now >I say this as someone who hardly uses it but knows that it is there if I want to communicate with someone I care about. Do you really want to send physical letters again ? Yes they have their charm and nostalgia but I am not willing to trade the convenience of internet for something worse or outdated. That all fits in the original, "utopian" if you want, view of the internet espoused in the article. You can do that with email, IMs like IRC, personal webpages. Facebook-style social media, with its surveillance, addictiveness, toxic feedback loops, is irrelevant to this task.