You need water to be a productive member of society. (Or to survive at all, but that's a prerequisite.) You need food to be a productive member of society. (Or to survive at all, but that's a prerequisite.) You need shelter to be a productive member of society. More often that not, you need electricity to be a productive member of society. Increasingly so, you need internet to be a productive member of society.
In every case, the person consuming these resources either:
[a] pays for them on their own
[b] is provided them but paid by someone else, possibly in aggregate (family, government services, charity)
[c] not provided them at all, in which case they are no longer a productive member of society (or worse, near-starving, starving, or dead)
Ethics and economic systems notwithstanding, the first few are 'hard problems' that humanity has struggled with for millennia. Internet access is comparatively easy, because the marginal costs of distribution are low, but just like other 'utilities' and 'necessities', the capital cost is high.
One way to offset this is to create a market like for electricity, where multiple players, some private, some government-owned, compete at the supply-side and distribution-side, to provide capacity at prices that are close to the cost of (production+transmission) for the area.
Luckily, unlike electricity, water, food, or shelter, information can be duplicated, format-shifted, batched, compressed, time-delayed, and the like. If fixed-fiber-based Internet to arbitrary endpoints is too expensive despite the presence of a market, cache or store more content closer to the consumer on CDNs. If last-mile distribution is too expensive, switch to a different last-mile distribution paradigm -- this latter one is what public libraries (and public hotspots) currently accomplish. If bi-directional communication is desired, investigate peer-to-peer solutions. There's so much potential in LANs, WANs, sneakernet, (TV/radio/data) broadcast that goes untapped.
We're stuck here because right now telcos are a terrible market and the monopolies are granted at the wrong level; but also because we're assuming that getting direct, end-to-end connection from one of the big telcos is the only way to digitally communicate.
In every case, the person consuming these resources either:
[a] pays for them on their own
[b] is provided them but paid by someone else, possibly in aggregate (family, government services, charity)
[c] not provided them at all, in which case they are no longer a productive member of society (or worse, near-starving, starving, or dead)
Ethics and economic systems notwithstanding, the first few are 'hard problems' that humanity has struggled with for millennia. Internet access is comparatively easy, because the marginal costs of distribution are low, but just like other 'utilities' and 'necessities', the capital cost is high.
One way to offset this is to create a market like for electricity, where multiple players, some private, some government-owned, compete at the supply-side and distribution-side, to provide capacity at prices that are close to the cost of (production+transmission) for the area.
Luckily, unlike electricity, water, food, or shelter, information can be duplicated, format-shifted, batched, compressed, time-delayed, and the like. If fixed-fiber-based Internet to arbitrary endpoints is too expensive despite the presence of a market, cache or store more content closer to the consumer on CDNs. If last-mile distribution is too expensive, switch to a different last-mile distribution paradigm -- this latter one is what public libraries (and public hotspots) currently accomplish. If bi-directional communication is desired, investigate peer-to-peer solutions. There's so much potential in LANs, WANs, sneakernet, (TV/radio/data) broadcast that goes untapped.
We're stuck here because right now telcos are a terrible market and the monopolies are granted at the wrong level; but also because we're assuming that getting direct, end-to-end connection from one of the big telcos is the only way to digitally communicate.