The author seems to be of the opinion that if others are suffering, it is each individual's moral obligation to suffer as well, and not to improve their own liv

The author seems to be of the opinion that if others are suffering, it is each individual's moral obligation to suffer as well, and not to improve their own lives at the (potential) cost of others, or really even at all. My own belief (at least, in theory) is that everyone should operate with the goal of improving their own lives, with the moral obligation being to improve yourself without dragging others down. And by doing so, in the distributed sense, the whole system will improve. The problem of course naturally extends from there being a limited set of resources. The secondary issue the author is complaining about is digital isolation, but that's not so much a problem of rich vs poor -- any group approaching a minimum level of wealth (which for a first-world country, is not set that high, relatively) is currently falling into the pit of digital isolation. Physical isolation (beyond your home) is generally more expensive, and reserved mainly for the very wealthy.