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Bruce Sterling "Poor folk love their cellphones." "Poor folk" don't have cellphones. They can't afford them.
by Adam503 17y ago
Bruce Sterling "Poor folk love their cellphones."
"Poor folk" don't have cellphones. They can't afford them.
- olefoo 17y agoThere is a $20 Billion (with a B) a year market in prepaid cell phone services that says you are wrong. And as is often the case, providing convenient retail solutions for small purchasers can be more profitable than demanding long term contracts. As with many things, when it comes to mobile services the poor pay more and get less.
- Adam503 17y agoThose are lower middle class people buying those services. The poor would be choosing between their cellphones and shelter. Am not saying there are no people that choose to be homelessness and keep their cellphone, but there aren't very many.
- jibiki 17y agoNo true Scotsman would own a cellphone! In all seriousness, "poor" to me does not mean homeless. In fact, there are many people above the poverty line who I consider poor (the so-called "working poor".) Obviously this is different for you, and it's silly to have an argument over semantics.
- Adam503 17y agoThere's official US. Gov't standards for these types of things, you know. I use the same terminology and standards the US. Gov't does. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh07.html http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh07.htm... If someone insists on trying to communicate applying their own individual definition to terms of common usage that are different than those others in a region uses, they themselves are the ones that will have difficulty communicating their ideas. If the discussion is about poverty and the poor, and the discussion is in the US, the US Gov't standard would be the reasonable standard for terminology to be derived. So a single person with no dependents is considered poor in the US if they make less than $10,590 or roughly 10/11 K a year. I responded to Sterling's statement that said poor people love cellphone because people that make less than 10/11K a year don't have cell phone because they can't afford them.
- olefoo 17y agoIf you go through tracfone.com you can get into a phone and have very minimal service for less than $100 a year. That's slightly less than 1% of gross income, which is probably low for what people in that situation spend on communication. Now you or I would find the service cripplingly limited. But for someone who really needs it. It's there.
- varjag 17y agoIt is quite obvious from the article that "poor" was used there in sense of "not rich". Like, when one says "I'm a poor student" he doesn't necessarily mean he lives in cardboard box and hunts for his lunch in city park.
- omouse 17y ago"I'm a poor student" he doesn't necessarily mean he lives in cardboard box and hunts for his lunch in city park. Well if you're a sociology student or something... :P
- mbrubeck 17y agoIt's not at all unusual to see homeless people with mobile phones. Some homeless shelters even provide them to clients, to help them with job hunting. And it's not like anyone is "choosing to be homeless" by spending $5/month on a prepaid cell phone.
- pfedor 17y agoIn downtown Palo Alto you can see people sitting on the sidewalk with cardboards which say they lost their jobs and don't have money for food, talking on their iPhones.
- Adam503 17y agoYou think there's poor people in Pala Alto, CA, huh? Wikipedia has per capita income in Palo Alto, CA as $56,257. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_per_capita_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_per_cap...
- joechung 17y agoGiven the number of people whose income is over $56K, that implies that there are just as many, if not more, people whose income is below that.
- Adam503 17y agoThe US standard for poverty is roughly $10,500 a year. Palo Alto's median income more than 5 times the US poverty standard. Go find me a place IN Palo Alto someone whose income is $10,500 a year can pay what the US Fed. Gov't standard for what it considers reasonable rent... 30% of one's income to live IN Palo Alto.
- rarestnews 17y agoMy friend told me the other day he was in a bus, and there he saw a very poor immigrant who was talking on his cell whole trip. I thought this was weird and unusual, but he told me he saw similar thing lots of times. Many of my friends who earn little, spend ALL of their money on unnecessary purchases, like newest cellphones, newest clothing, etc, they're deep in debt and continue spending this way.
- Adam503 17y agoThere's some really incredible things people say "a friend of theirs saw." Here's a regularly updated page with 25 of those things people swear their friends were eyewitness to... http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp
- rarestnews 17y agoKudos for bringing it up. Now we have a conspiracy to find the elusive poor guy with a cellphone. Maybe next decade we'll develop a cryptomobilanthropology hunting for the unbelieveable miracle of elusive poor guy talking on a cell phone hiding in foggy woods and out-of-focus areas. Kudos, Adam503, keep up the good work debunking the greatest mysteries of our time!
- pavel_lishin 17y agoAin't that the American dream?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- donaq 17y agoI think you're missing the point, which is more about misery loving company than about cellphones.
- maigret 17y agoSure they do afford. Most people in Africa have a cell phone. They just don't have computers.
- Agathos 17y agoI don't know about "most." But yeah, the story of the poor African who uses a microloan to buy a cellphone that he/she rents to the rest of the village has been told so many times, it's a cliche. Also there's the one about the fishers and farmers who check on market prices before making the long trek to sell their goods.
- MaysonL 17y agoThey can if they get a loan from Grameen. And lots of them have. And paid the loans off, using the phones.