> In the upcoming years a billion people will come online that have less than $20000, $5000 or $2000 per year. They will have less education and less foreign language proficiency than the current internet users.
To me this is obvious and all the confusion in the sibling threads is a bit surprising.
The large numbers of people making less than $5,000 per year are not in the continental US. They are in India, China and other developing countries. In China, for example, the poorer people coming online now are vastly more likely not to have a working grasp of English or any other foreign language than the much wealthier group of Chinese internet users of the the 90s or even a decade ago.
How did so many commenters get hung up on the relatively low rates bilingualism of native English speakers? They are not the billion poor people coming online. Even if they were, their language skills would not be a barrier to internet usage as there is a very large and vibrant English-language internet which includes this site!
To me this is obvious and all the confusion in the sibling threads is a bit surprising.
The large numbers of people making less than $5,000 per year are not in the continental US. They are in India, China and other developing countries. In China, for example, the poorer people coming online now are vastly more likely not to have a working grasp of English or any other foreign language than the much wealthier group of Chinese internet users of the the 90s or even a decade ago.
How did so many commenters get hung up on the relatively low rates bilingualism of native English speakers? They are not the billion poor people coming online. Even if they were, their language skills would not be a barrier to internet usage as there is a very large and vibrant English-language internet which includes this site!