Online Population now Half Billion 273
mattvd writes "According to CNN, the number of people with Web access at home by the end of 2001 was 498 million." Not surprisingly, Asia is growing the fastest. It's amazing
that in only 10 years or so, the net has exploded so far, so fast, and now touches 10% of the earths population.
Ten percent of the what? (Score:1, Interesting)
(But what's a billion people or so between friends, right?)
End of the WWW (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the problem is with all these people fighting over bandwidth when are chaeper faster pipes be available for us to use? When can I say hey there are 1 mill users hitting my site and there is no lag?
I also wonder what these people are looking at. 90% porn and the other 10% refrence material and such.
Population figures (Score:2, Interesting)
There are 6.2 billion people [osearth.com] on the planet now, by the way.
Pretty close (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:498 million seems like so much... (Score:1, Interesting)
Only 10% of the users have computers at home, but who knows how many people have other means of access. I know in China very few people actually OWN their own computer, but hundreds of millions have to be using the internet cafes one can find on every block.
am from india.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most students in the cities have email and access the net quite regularly, if only for gaming or chat through these cyber-cafes and not at home. Also gives privacy
And once the government legalises VoIP there is definitely going to be a huge boom in the use of the cyber-cafes.
I am pretty sure that this must be the case in most developing economies. Of course like this article says [indiatimes.com] it needs to become a productivity tool.
Usability still an issue (Score:4, Interesting)
The revolution will not be televised. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the addition of millions of Chinese surfers will not make a difference to the web. They're going to be off surfing, producing, and supporting mostly Chinese sites, and we will stay in the English ones.
In fact, I would propose that the addition of all those extra people makes the Net less prone to revolution, not more. If they were competing with us for scare resources, that would be one thing. But the Net will expand exponentially to accommodate them and they can all do their own thing. In their own language.
Re:A little perspective... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the Internet does eventually reach 30% of the population, I'd say that's due to the "trickle down" effect. PCs that the wealthier 10% discard as useless get recycled into quite usable Internet terminals for people who can't afford something newer.
Of course, the communications infrastructure is the limiting factor, ultimately. You can sit there with the nicest PC in the world, but you can't get online if nobody will give you a connection.
Re:Wait (Score:4, Interesting)
You dont know much about China do you? Culture is everything, at least to the older generation.
There is no culture in the USA besides capitalism,
China sees us as cultureless and they dont want to end up like us. They like the technology of the internet but they dont like our culture and dont want to expose their youth to it.
How can you improve an economy without learning about capitalism? You have forgotten about communism?
It doenst benifit China in ANY way whatsoever to use our Internet, it makes more sense for them to create a seperate internet.
So tell me what the Chinese government has in mind, please no "Evil Communist" crap either, i want logical reasons.
In the usa, Oppression was about Capitalism and making money, it was for a reason, Censorship was about making money and maintaining power.
The Chinese see us as their biggest threat, their greatest competitor, for them to join us in the internet, and fall down and bow before aol and microsoft, you must be joking.
Umm.. WRONG! (Score:3, Interesting)
The correct statistic from your cite is 6.1% of all American households lack telephone service in their home. Also, you can hardly compare these Americans, who likely are at least NEAR a phone due to neighbors, pay phones, etc., to the poor people who live in Chinese and African villages and may not be within MILES of a phone.
Re:Wait (Score:2, Interesting)
I do agree you must be 13 since you don't know a thing about Tiananmen Sq. Unless you think their current persecution of the Falun Gong is a sign that the government is "relaxing a bit and opening up?"
Or is it "what is best for their economy?" Take a look at Hong Kong. It scares China because it had much more freedom and both the people and the economy prospered. Everyone wants to move there from Mainland China, so the government put restrictions on who can live there and have removed the popular vote from the upper parliament and replaced it with wealthy members of the Communist party.
And of course China's long history and defiance in the face of institutionalized and continuing human rights abuses must be what you chalk up as "the people suffer a bit." But I guess you agree that when "the people develop their own businesses on the net and their own culture" they will for give the government for burying their newly born child alive and sterilizing the woman.
You need a backhoe to shovel all that sh*t and you and everyone else knows it.
bah... that was worth the rant. I have enough karma that I can call you on your distortion of the truth without fearing for a precious few points. Isn't that what karma is really about?
Re:Umm.. WRONG! (Score:1, Interesting)
thank you [fazigu.org]