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Comment by taphangum | Hacker News Reader

Problem No. 1 is getting the right information to the right people is it not? In that case, isn't the internet the best way to disseminate that information? Doesn't bridging the information gap, bridge the skills and eventually wealth gap?

I'm sorry, but I just don't understand your argument at all.

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My point is that free Internet is the solution to a problem that is not yet ready to be solved.

Most importantly, the current lack of a good education means that the Internet as a means of information transferral becomes effectively useless. Until the people have at least basic literacy skills and a moderate grasp of English, the Internet won't help them, because they won't be able to use it.

How is the availability of information (which is the real separator of peoples) 'a problem that is not yet ready to be solved'?

Information is never just that abstract concept 'information'. Information has to be transmitted for it to be of any use. Information transmission requires a sender and a receiver, an encoding for the information that is understood by both parties, and a medium. In this case, we have senders (people who write web pages) and receivers (African villagers). If we add in free Internet, we also have the medium. But without a shared encoding, all these are absolutely useless. The shared encoding is, in this case, the (written) language. But as long as rural Africans cannot speak English (or any other language commonly found on the web), and as long as they cannot at least read with some level of proficiency, we simply do not have a working system of encoding that could be used to transmit information.

Thus, in order for free Internet to be effective as a provider of information, we first need to give the target audience an education sufficient for reading and understanding English.

What has given you the idea that the only viable 'Encoder' is written language? Voice or (depending on the bandwidth performance of a given area) video could do the job just as well, at least initially.

Is the Internet not the best (or at least one of the best) medium for the learning of the 'encoders' necessary for wider use?

I never said that the written language is the only encoder possible. However, I am sure you agree that it is by far the most common on the Internet. Even to navigate YouTube you need to read the buttons/know what to search for!

Furthermore, even if we take sufficient bandwidth to watch videos/hear audio for granted (which is a large technical problem in itself), we are still left with the problem that you first need to produce material in a language that the people actually understand (which is, all too often, not English or French or any other major language!).

> Is the Internet not the best (or at least one of the best) medium for the learning of the 'encoders' necessary for wider use?

In theory perhaps, but in practice? How many people do you know of that have learnt how to write and read using the Internet?

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