[wolco]

There was open access to the internet when aol started giving away cd-roms. Rich and poor, educated and less educated roamed different sites often clashing.

The interest wasn't massive because things were not super easy. Phones bridged the gap. Fast forward to today you have less choice but bigger buy buttons.

[ucaetano]

> rich and poor

You seem to have a mental image of the internet that doesn't correspond to reality. Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan.

Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit.

[tkxxx7]

> Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan. Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit.

I was very, very poor. So were most of the kids I grew up with. Most of us couldn't afford new computers; that's true. So we bought old ones. My father - tears in his eyes - lugged in something ancient that he'd picked up for $50, having no idea how to use it but hoping that putting it in front me would do me some good. AOL had been mailing everyone in town (Detroit). Some kids got PCs from the nearby churches, some got them from the school (others still only ever used them in school). We collected and hoarded the access disks, and would go ringing each others' phones or knocking down doors to share websites we'd found. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized the AOL search results page was not the entire internet, and that I could click on any text with a blue outline.

> doesn't correspond to reality

I know there are people who managed (or didn't..) to grow up poorer than I did. But even poverty is a spectrum.

[ucaetano]

Very poor where? In the US?

The "very poor" in the US are rich in most of the developing world.

[tkxxx7]

I am aware of this, anticipated this response from you (as you’ve repeated in this thread), and addressed it at the end of the comment you’re replying to. I do not believe that a global perspective diminishes the argument in any way.

[ucaetano]

Oh, it does. Only 5% of the global population had access to the internet in 2000.

If that doesn't qualify it as a product only available to the elites, I don't know what will...

[tkxxx7]

Given the nature of your position it feels ironic to be saying to you that if you feel my family was amongst the worlds’ “elite” just because we lived in the US, then I believe you may need a more nuanced outlook on people. Also, there’s a tent-city of people outside my building who’d like a word with you.