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I wonder whether it counts people who use internet, but don't know it. My grandma uses her phone to chat with me, check the weather, recipes and news. But if yo

I wonder whether it counts people who use internet, but don't know it. My grandma uses her phone to chat with me, check the weather, recipes and news. But if you ask her whether she uses internet or not - she'd say no and she has no use for it.

globular-toast 5y ago
I was trying to think of other technologies people use but don't know it. If people drive they probably also know that they use the road, but maybe they don't know that they "use" the drainage works that were put in hundreds of years ago. At what point does it become silly to ask the question? "Do you use the water treatment facility on the edge of town?" "Do you use money?"
- fragmede 5y ago
  Banking. (Which is a technology, albiet quite an old one.) If someone doesn't personally have a mortgage or car loan, and gets paid in cash, and doesn't use banks at all; Does such a person need banks to exist? Does society? Some people I've talked to honestly believe the answer is no.
  - SkittyDog 5y ago
    To be clear, are YOU advocating for the belief that banks don't need to exist? Because the statement is technically true, but basically meaningless... Cars don't need to exist, modern medicine doesn't need to exist, electric lightbulbs don't need to exist. But they all provide conveniences and functionality that most people seem to appreciate, and would not be willing to part with.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Water's a really good one! Where does your tap water come from? What water district are you in? Or conversely, what's your ISP's ISP (Level3/etc)? Where's your closest Internet Exchange (IX)? How many hops away are your closest friends on the Internet?
est31 5y ago
Yeah you can basically arbitrarily expand or restrict the circle of people. If I don't use the internet otherwise but I go to a machine to buy myself a train ticket. The machine is internally connected with the train company's servers which might be in the cloud, so the signal goes via "the internet" for a short time. Does that count as use of the internet or is the internet just an implementation detail? No you could say, because you don't use it at home and you use an appliance. But then is your grandma using the internet, because she uses a bunch of appliances, too? And someone who uses the internet through an internet cafe, something very common in some asian countries, wouldn't be "using" it either as they are not at home. Basically all modern cars built in the last 5 years send telemetry data back to their manufacturers. Is driving a Mercedes EQS/Tesla usage of the internet?
- xyproto 5y ago
  Perhaps "being able to search for a topic on Wikipedia" could work as a more exact definition?
  - nefitty 5y ago
    I used to read the encyclopedia when I was little, before I had the internet. Was I fractionally connected to the internet, as opposed to 100% unfettered Wikipedia access?
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    This would exclude people who live in China, but otherwise have access to the (restricted) internet.
- sharikous 5y ago
  Are there still cars with no telemetry data? Believe me, this world is increasingly dystopian.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    Up until two weeks ago my car didn't (or at least it didn't send any data anywhere, I know one mechanic hooked up an iPad to it to get some sort of real-time data from the engine once when diagnosing a transmission issue). Drove a sedan from 2008. Had over 150k miles on it. Still drives fine, next owner might be able to get another 50k miles from it.
caddybox 5y ago
I see this headline as 63% of the world now uses the internet in some shape or form. Irrespective of whether they know this or not, any threats to this vast communication network will affect their lives in some shape or form. A large part of the world has started to treat internet as a utility and the disruption of this utility has implications for people irrespective of how it's structured, managed or made available.
- Closi 5y ago
  I read it differently - 63% of people when asked will say that they directly use the internet. Most of the data seems to come from surveys, and some of the data notes seem to mention stuff around households being asked. Im not sure a person using an internet connected ATM would count, or a person who uses the internet in some form at work but does not have a broadband connection at home etc If you count indirect usage, I suspect the figure is much higher - ie do we really believe that c13% of Europe manages to get through a month without using the internet in any form? I’m a bit sceptical on this data as it appears to be poorly explained in terms of methodology (and some is even just forecast through a model).
- tialaramex 5y ago
  The Network is a utility. Historically the previous two iterations of the Network were treated that way, the Universal Postal Union and the Public Switched Telephone Network. It's true that it's possible to live without access to the Network, people did up until the Treaty of Bern (in 1874) - it is also possible to live without access to electricity, or fresh water and people did that too, they're still utilities.
agumonkey 5y ago
Good point, and the reverse is true, some people click on "internet something" but most of the time it's for administrative processes.

globular-toast 5y ago

I was trying to think of other technologies people use but don't know it. If people drive they probably also know that they use the road, but maybe they don't know that they "use" the drainage works that were put in hundreds of years ago. At what point does it become silly to ask the question? "Do you use the water treatment facility on the edge of town?" "Do you use money?"

fragmede 5y ago
Banking. (Which is a technology, albiet quite an old one.) If someone doesn't personally have a mortgage or car loan, and gets paid in cash, and doesn't use banks at all; Does such a person need banks to exist? Does society? Some people I've talked to honestly believe the answer is no.
- SkittyDog 5y ago
  To be clear, are YOU advocating for the belief that banks don't need to exist? Because the statement is technically true, but basically meaningless... Cars don't need to exist, modern medicine doesn't need to exist, electric lightbulbs don't need to exist. But they all provide conveniences and functionality that most people seem to appreciate, and would not be willing to part with.
fragmede 5y ago
Water's a really good one! Where does your tap water come from? What water district are you in? Or conversely, what's your ISP's ISP (Level3/etc)? Where's your closest Internet Exchange (IX)? How many hops away are your closest friends on the Internet?

est31 5y ago

Yeah you can basically arbitrarily expand or restrict the circle of people. If I don't use the internet otherwise but I go to a machine to buy myself a train ticket. The machine is internally connected with the train company's servers which might be in the cloud, so the signal goes via "the internet" for a short time. Does that count as use of the internet or is the internet just an implementation detail? No you could say, because you don't use it at home and you use an appliance. But then is your grandma using the internet, because she uses a bunch of appliances, too? And someone who uses the internet through an internet cafe, something very common in some asian countries, wouldn't be "using" it either as they are not at home. Basically all modern cars built in the last 5 years send telemetry data back to their manufacturers. Is driving a Mercedes EQS/Tesla usage of the internet?

xyproto 5y ago
Perhaps "being able to search for a topic on Wikipedia" could work as a more exact definition?
- nefitty 5y ago
  I used to read the encyclopedia when I was little, before I had the internet. Was I fractionally connected to the internet, as opposed to 100% unfettered Wikipedia access?
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  This would exclude people who live in China, but otherwise have access to the (restricted) internet.
sharikous 5y ago
Are there still cars with no telemetry data? Believe me, this world is increasingly dystopian.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Up until two weeks ago my car didn't (or at least it didn't send any data anywhere, I know one mechanic hooked up an iPad to it to get some sort of real-time data from the engine once when diagnosing a transmission issue). Drove a sedan from 2008. Had over 150k miles on it. Still drives fine, next owner might be able to get another 50k miles from it.

caddybox 5y ago

I see this headline as 63% of the world now uses the internet in some shape or form. Irrespective of whether they know this or not, any threats to this vast communication network will affect their lives in some shape or form. A large part of the world has started to treat internet as a utility and the disruption of this utility has implications for people irrespective of how it's structured, managed or made available.

Closi 5y ago
I read it differently - 63% of people when asked will say that they directly use the internet. Most of the data seems to come from surveys, and some of the data notes seem to mention stuff around households being asked. Im not sure a person using an internet connected ATM would count, or a person who uses the internet in some form at work but does not have a broadband connection at home etc If you count indirect usage, I suspect the figure is much higher - ie do we really believe that c13% of Europe manages to get through a month without using the internet in any form? I’m a bit sceptical on this data as it appears to be poorly explained in terms of methodology (and some is even just forecast through a model).
tialaramex 5y ago
The Network is a utility. Historically the previous two iterations of the Network were treated that way, the Universal Postal Union and the Public Switched Telephone Network. It's true that it's possible to live without access to the Network, people did up until the Treaty of Bern (in 1874) - it is also possible to live without access to electricity, or fresh water and people did that too, they're still utilities.

agumonkey 5y ago

Good point, and the reverse is true, some people click on "internet something" but most of the time it's for administrative processes.