(no subject)
Jan. 6th, 2019 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellwayEdit: [epistemic status: trying to get a clearer sense of the many complicated feelings I have about this subject]
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Epcot and to some extent Tomorrowland like to portray themselves as portraying the Glorious Future, and to some extent they do. But the most Glorious Future aspect of them (as of 2015) isn't the rocketships or electronic background music. You know what it is?
It's the Wi-Fi.
The whole place is blanketed in it. No extra charge, no time or data limits, no account signup, not so much as an entry portal. You can pull out your smartphone and try to do an Internet-requiring thing and it just *works*.
And this did enhance my Disney-ing! I could look up the lyrics to a Disney song I'd heard in passing earlier, or request a different reservation time at a ride or restaurant. I did some Disney-related Internet use at the parks pretty much every day I was at a park at all, and it was a lot better than having to wonder how the words of a song went or having to hunt down a FastPass kiosk.
But I could also just check my email or read something or whatever, and I could know that all of these *options* were there even when I wasn't using them. It was *beautiful*.
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There *has* been some continued proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots over the past few years--I think more so in America than Canada--but we do also seem to be moving in the direction of relying more on mobile data, on each individual arranging for (and paying for) their own [Internet access while away from home]. I'm still annoyed by the sign I saw at an alcohol store a couple years ago recommending you read their website for more information on a thing, *but the store didn't have Wi-Fi, they just assumed you had brought your own data*.
And part of me knows that I'm being a bit unreasonable and double-standard-y, that access to the cellular infrastructure isn't *all* that expensive even in Canada (well known for its bullshit oligopolistic cell system). I know exactly where I could get a basic cell plan for $7/month + 3c/MB, or an unlimited data plan for $35/month (throttled after 1.5 GB). I know that it wouldn't actually be very hard for me to afford it, if only I could talk myself into it. And it's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than a Disney ticket.
It's still a very different experience *psychologically*, though. Like...I don't know where it was, but people were talking on Tumblr a while back about how sometimes it's better to not have the option not to buy something, because now instead of just buying it you're faced with the options of "buy the thing (and feel like you're wasting money)" and "don't buy the thing (and be deprived of it)", both of which are unpleasant.
(They were talking about the possibility of standing-room-only airplanes (in exchange for a lower ticket price than the current one), and how that could end up making having a seat feel like a frivolous thing that one cannot in good conscience spend money on, even if a purely rational version of themself would conclude that they *did* value having a seat more than the $X additional charge and happily pay it.)
And with Internet, there's also the altruistic warm-fuzzies of a blanket system, and other benefits-from-ensuring-that-*everyone*-gets-it like being able to email someone and know that they'll be able to receive it. I get that there are sound reasons to prefer that the government stay out of it, but I think it would probably be easier, psychologically, to pay taxes towards a blanket system than to pay for an individual mobile-data connectionand not *just* because I'm too poor to be eligible to pay taxes.
Every so often I hear about people who want to set up a Universal Basic Internet satellite network, providing the world with Internet slow enough that the vast majority of people who currently pay for Internet access will still do so, but such that you aren't *completely* screwed without a subscription. AFAICT none of these plans have ever gone anywhere, and I have no idea what I could do to help such a plan along, but I think I would like to live in a world where they've succeeded.
---
Epcot and to some extent Tomorrowland like to portray themselves as portraying the Glorious Future, and to some extent they do. But the most Glorious Future aspect of them (as of 2015) isn't the rocketships or electronic background music. You know what it is?
It's the Wi-Fi.
The whole place is blanketed in it. No extra charge, no time or data limits, no account signup, not so much as an entry portal. You can pull out your smartphone and try to do an Internet-requiring thing and it just *works*.
And this did enhance my Disney-ing! I could look up the lyrics to a Disney song I'd heard in passing earlier, or request a different reservation time at a ride or restaurant. I did some Disney-related Internet use at the parks pretty much every day I was at a park at all, and it was a lot better than having to wonder how the words of a song went or having to hunt down a FastPass kiosk.
But I could also just check my email or read something or whatever, and I could know that all of these *options* were there even when I wasn't using them. It was *beautiful*.
---
There *has* been some continued proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots over the past few years--I think more so in America than Canada--but we do also seem to be moving in the direction of relying more on mobile data, on each individual arranging for (and paying for) their own [Internet access while away from home]. I'm still annoyed by the sign I saw at an alcohol store a couple years ago recommending you read their website for more information on a thing, *but the store didn't have Wi-Fi, they just assumed you had brought your own data*.
And part of me knows that I'm being a bit unreasonable and double-standard-y, that access to the cellular infrastructure isn't *all* that expensive even in Canada (well known for its bullshit oligopolistic cell system). I know exactly where I could get a basic cell plan for $7/month + 3c/MB, or an unlimited data plan for $35/month (throttled after 1.5 GB). I know that it wouldn't actually be very hard for me to afford it, if only I could talk myself into it. And it's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than a Disney ticket.
It's still a very different experience *psychologically*, though. Like...I don't know where it was, but people were talking on Tumblr a while back about how sometimes it's better to not have the option not to buy something, because now instead of just buying it you're faced with the options of "buy the thing (and feel like you're wasting money)" and "don't buy the thing (and be deprived of it)", both of which are unpleasant.
(They were talking about the possibility of standing-room-only airplanes (in exchange for a lower ticket price than the current one), and how that could end up making having a seat feel like a frivolous thing that one cannot in good conscience spend money on, even if a purely rational version of themself would conclude that they *did* value having a seat more than the $X additional charge and happily pay it.)
And with Internet, there's also the altruistic warm-fuzzies of a blanket system, and other benefits-from-ensuring-that-*everyone*-gets-it like being able to email someone and know that they'll be able to receive it. I get that there are sound reasons to prefer that the government stay out of it, but I think it would probably be easier, psychologically, to pay taxes towards a blanket system than to pay for an individual mobile-data connection
Every so often I hear about people who want to set up a Universal Basic Internet satellite network, providing the world with Internet slow enough that the vast majority of people who currently pay for Internet access will still do so, but such that you aren't *completely* screwed without a subscription. AFAICT none of these plans have ever gone anywhere, and I have no idea what I could do to help such a plan along, but I think I would like to live in a world where they've succeeded.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-20 09:15 pm (UTC)It sure would be nice, though.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-21 04:38 am (UTC)---
Interestingly, in my experience the United States is *closer* to the universal-Internet ideal than Canada is: more places have Wi-Fi (mid-low tier Canadian grocery stores do *not* have Wi-Fi, and banks are still in the process of adding it), mobile data plans are cheaper†, and free (but throttled) overage data is standard.
(Don't be fooled by the fact that I was able to find *a* Canadian supplier that does free-but-throttled: only two out of the ~10 (depending on how you count) do it. Note that Freedom Mobile has incredibly narrow geographical zoning, so I always ignore it when doing Canadian phone comparisons. (Every time I hear a Freedom Mobile ad while outside of their zone, broadcast from a radio tower that is *also* outside of their zone, I hate them a little more. I have heard many such ads.))
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I suspect that any satellites that got off the ground (so to speak) could do so only by agreeing to restrict themselves to serving poorer countries, kind of like with Wikipedia Zero. (though lack of mobile *Wikipedia* is among the easier lacks to deal with because you can just download the entire thing in advance; which I guess means it *would* be more reasonable for Wikipedia Zero to focus on poorer countries than it would for general-Internet, since mobile Wikipedia is only really necessary if you *never* have a good Internet connection or if you can't afford a microSD card)
((okay admittedly I'm running an outdated and imageless version of the Wikipedia download on my phone because of not having a good enough microSD card for a better version, but I ""can't afford a better microSD card"" only in the same way I ""can't afford a phone plan"" and the potential-future versions of those people on Tumblr ""can't afford a plane seat""))
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Given that the Canadian government's idea of expanding access to basic information utilities is requiring that TV providers offer a $25/month package, I kind of suspect that if tasked with the problem of mobile data they'd look at Public Mobile or maybe Chatr and go "yep, problem already solved, maybe require other providers to offer this sort of thing too but this is the right general idea".
I think about getting a Public Mobile plan sometimes, but I've used pay-per-use phones a lot over the years--back before Public Mobile had a price tier that low and the pay-per-use [$100/year]-minimum-credit-purchase providers were the cheapest around--and I know what horrible things pay-per-use does to your psyche if you are the type to agonise over plane seats. I'm still in the process of training myself out of the habits of cost-benefit-analysing every use of a phone before I start pressing the buttons (and sometimes coming to an analysis conclusion of "no, not worth it"), and of trying to stuff everything I want to write to someone into as few texts as possible, and of resenting everyone who causes me to need to use a phone. (as I put it when talking to someone else about this previously, there is no hatred quite like the hatred you feel for someone who is making you pay 20c/minute to be on hold)
(As for Chatr, $35/month every month indefinitely *might* be verging into "genuinely cannot afford that" territory. I really need to do the end-of-year accounting to see if we're in the red again this year or not, and what magnitude the profit/loss is.)
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It occurs to me that at first glance [the thing about not being able to bring yourself to buy things if you can technically get away with it, and how this leads to bad things] and [the desire to make high-speed Internet more firmly something that you can technically get away with not buying] seem to conflict, but in practice I suspect even the people with the psychological issues would mostly still buy Internet subscriptions (assuming they did previously). There are many things you straight-up can't do on a slow connection, and being able to stream video (let alone doing other high-bandwidth stuff) is very important to a lot of people. If anything I'm likely to *under*estimate how much people care about video (and for that matter likely to overestimate how much people care about how much their data costs)).
(If you attempt to get from point A to point B by using a standing-room-only plane, you will succeed but with a more uncomfortable experience. If you try to hang out with a friend over Twitch by using an overaged mobile-data plan, you will fail.)
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†Though not by as *much* as the people complaining about oligopoly would have you believe: I suspect they're comparing apples to oranges, looking at Canadian brands-that-compete-on-name-recognition and American brands-that-compete-on-price, even though both countries have both brand types. Sure, Rogers will overcharge the shit out of you if you buy directly from them, but so will Verizon.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-25 09:13 pm (UTC)So instead, I'm just going to say that these are good words! I enjoyed reading them! I somehow managed to anxiety myself into not replying for a month, but nonetheless, I totally read and appreciated them! This was an interesting topic, and I gained new perspective from reading what you wrote about it!