Is Google Making the Digital Divide Worse? 259
theodp writes "As Google Fiber forges ahead into new metro areas, Michael Brick reports on worries the fiber project will create a permanent underclass. Building the next generation of information economy infrastructure around current demand, experts say, will deny poor people the physical wiring needed to gain access while the privileged digerati advance at hyperspeed. 'The fiber service deployment means multiplicity of the digital divide, multidimensionality of the digital divide,' says Eun-A Park of the Univ. of New Haven. 'You can see it in Google's trial in Kansas City.' Speed matters, explains Google, 'because a world with universal access and 100 times faster internet could mean 100 times the learning.' Without universal access, as is the case in KC due to pricing that's out of the reach of many of the city's poor, one presumes the outcome could be 100x the learning divide. Another case of the unintended consequences of good intentions?"
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
...Ford is making the transportation gap worse by producing vehicles that the poor can't afford, and I am making the car analogy gap worse by making car analogies people who don't read Slashdot can't see.
envy (Score:4, Funny)
An old joke about neighbor envy ...
An angel in disguise visit a peasant's hut and is brought inside. The peasant shares what little food he has, and lets him sleep under his only blanket.
The next morning the angel reveals himself and tells the peasant he will be rewarded, but the catch is, whatever the peasant asks for, his neighbor will get double.
The peasant, agonized, thinks on it all day. Finally he tells the angel "I ask that you put out one of my eyes".