Bother, said Pooh, as he connected at 19.9kbps

Remember when 56k was great.  You'd connect at 19.9k and hit the disconnect button until you got one of those magical "high speed" connections so you wouldn't have to sit around waiting for stuff to load?

 Comcast has been bugging me for about three months to upgrade my modem to Docsis3.0.  It is faster.  It is better.  It will make me waffles every morning.

OK, I may have made up that last part.  But I did a speed test because I was wondering what the big deal is.  I own my modem and it is working fine so I hate to have to go spend $100 on something I don't need when I could use it for something I'd rather have.  Here are the results:

I think that's pretty darn fast.  Just a quick calculation tells me that 9.69 MEGAbytes is one hundred and seventy three times as fast as the old standard of 5.6 KILObytes.  Comcast, however, is not happy.  They want me to be faster.  They want it badly enough that they are sending me weekly emails telling me how much better my life would be if only I would upgrade.  That's a speed increase of 35% per year on average and now they are telling me that it isn't good enough.

What are they getting out of this?  Presumably happier customers.  They don't make money off the modem I buy, my bill hasn't gone up, and they are not requiring me to purchase any service upgrades.  I, however, will have better service for a small upfront investment.

Don't tell me that capitalism doesn't work.

For everyone or for no one

Google is working on what they believe will be the next generation of high speed data delivery, gigabit internet.  The problem?  Critics are claiming that it is discriminatory towards the poor that Google is only building where people can afford to pay for it?  Where did this idea come from that if everyone couldn't afford something then no one should have access to it?  Setting aside the arguments that improved service in some areas will ultimately result in improved service in all areas as the technology advances and competitors scramble to keep up, the argument for equality of access stems from the social justice movement, that everyone have equal access to the benefits of society. 

The problem as I see it is that high speed internet is not a benefit of society, it is a benefit of the people who invested their time and money coming up with a better mousetrap in order to advance themselves.  A consequence of their efforts is that we benefit from more access and better technology.  To claim that there is some injustice in providing advancements to a small segment of the population first ignores the fact that these advancements, if effective, inevitably spread to society as a whole.  Need examples, how about the automobile, electricity, refrigerators, and television.  Do these social justice warriors think that everyone had access to a refrigerator the day they were first made available?  Of course not, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone today who doesn't have one.

I don't know whether the objections these people raise are rooted in ignorance or enmity, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Time to do a little thinking about your worldview and recognize that advances have to come gradually and be market tested.  They have to show the ability to survive the market, otherwise we end up with a single car "authorized" by the government and available to all.  And we know how the Lada worked out.

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/holding-back-high-speed-internet-for-the-poors-sake-just-hurts-everyone/