Many Americans see little point to Web? (Don't need the "Internets")

Reuters ^ | March 26, 2007

[SmoothTalker]

Took a while for some folks to see the value of the phone and indoor plumbing.

[weegee]

Wonder how many of those who say they don't want/need the internet are still paying AT&T to rent their phone every month.

[BurbankKarl]

The internet is getting a little long in the tooth....the younger generation doesnt even bother with email....they just send 5000 text messages each month

[weegee]

And he woulda got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling pajama people and their Mystery Machine.

[weegee]

The government is partnering with industry for lucrative contracts (and tax schemes) to "provide" low cost or free internet to "low income households".

It doesn't matter that they may not want it. There are people in government who can channel tax money to their friends' companies so they will count these people as "neglected masses" and declare it a national crisis.

[RobbyS]

Yes, I hate headlines like these. I am sure that once upon a time there were still millions of Americans who did not own a car.

[uglybiker]

They're called "Amish". "Old Order Amish", to be precise.

Amish laptop

[PizzaDriver]

How many of Us don't feel a need for cell phones, HDTV, Palm Pilots, etc?

How many have dropped our Subscriptions to our local Paper?

Must We, all, be Alike?

[FierceDraka]

Good.

Part of my old job was assisting those knuckle-dragging, bestial kludges get their pathetic dialup internet to work on their Win95 POS comuters to work.

If you're paying $10 a month for ITLnet in Oklahoma and reading this, you're a frakking mindless dialup dog who deserves no tech support, and most likely needs to be ruthlessly beaten like a bastard mule.

/hates dialup
//hates dialup-using dogs even more
///get a real computer and broadband, or frakking hang yourself
////hates ignorant kludges more than anything, even more than Demonrats

[BnBlFlag]

As Brother Dave Gardner used to say: "Different strokes for different folks".

[FierceDraka]

And furthermore...

"Me has dialup Interweb tubes! Me want pictures of hairless females and crystal meth recipes! Buh! Buh! Me beat chest to show who's boss! Make 'puter go!"

Oh yeah, I WENT there!

Don't pi$$ off the IT guy - he'll send you back to 1960 and laugh at you.

[Danette]

[FierceDraka]

I feel your pain.

My parents have aPC w/ broadband, but they also have grandkids who come over and download all kinds of crap.

I'm going to go over there lock down their router, install a real firewall, and create user accounts that can't do anything but basic web surfing for my nieces and nephews. No cookies, no ActiveX controls, no NOTHING.

Lock it down, and make it tight!

I hate doing free tech support.

[FierceDraka]

Do you actually remember life before the internet? Seems like ages, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does seem like a long time ago, but I still remember it.

Lots of booze, loose women, and debauchery.

Now, it's lots of booze and debauchery, but replace loose women with my One True Love - a tech geek just like me who is also a sybarite.

[Danette]

[FierceDraka]

MANBEARPIG!

I'm TOTALLY serial!

[Kirkwood]

I don't have cable or satellite tv and don't want it or need it.

[Skibane]

so they're still on dialup. This may be fine for e-mail, but modern webpages are full of content that takes forever to download.

Have to disagree. With the exception of the occasional "Hey everybody, look at this funny video on Yew-Tube!" thread, there's not much on broadband that you can't also comfortably browse on dialup.

Virusware and spyware updates alone are torture.

Funny you should mention security: Compared to broadband, keeping hackers at bay on dialup is child's play.

[IrishRainy]

Well, 10 years ago I thought businesses having a web site was absolutely ridiculous. Now, if I can't bring up their site, they don't exist for me. Thank goodness Al Gore wasn't counting on MY help all those years ago....

[AnotherUnixGeek]

My wife and I were just discussing the wisdom of giving our parents computers. Besides the headache of maintaining their computers (including two full-blown re-installs on the mother-in-law's pc in one year), they don't want to pay for broadband, so they're still on dialup.

I got my mom a Macbook for it's elegance and ease-of-use and a cable modem. She's on every morning while she has her breakfast, and on in the evenings after dinner - reads her articles, checks out YouTube, reads the MySpace pages of the younger family members, video chats with me and her other adult children - amazing how quickly something once thought of as unnecessary can become a part of everyday life.