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Comment by dgrin91 | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't really make sense to me. Only 30% of Americans have jobs where they can't work from home? Truck drivers, factory workers, cashiers, taxi drivers, etc all make up less than 30% of America? I dont buy that.

Smells like selection bias to me... are they interviewing people already at home because their work allows it?

They do mention -

> There are certainly some folks who work in healthcare, grocery stores, auto shops, etc., where you wouldn't think a strong home internet connection was a requirement.

But I still remain skeptical that so many claim they require home internet. At the very least work email can be done on a phone.

View on HN

I think there's three key things here:

1. The survey found that only 63.8% said their job required a home internet connection pre pandemic, so it's closer to 40% of Americans with jobs that don't require home internet.

2. Sending emails from your phone at home is for all intents and purposes the same as a home internet connection. If you were no longer able to connect to the internet from within your home, you wouldn't be able to send those emails i.e. do your job.

3. There is a difference between jobs that can theoretically be done without home internet access, but that in practice require it. For example, you could theoretically drive a truck without any home internet. But, in practice, most truckers find loads and contracts via load boards, which you obviously need an internet connection to access.

With all of those considerations, the percentages don't seem too fishy to me. I buy that pre-pandemic, roughly 64% of Americans were in jobs that required them to connect to the internet from home for at least some work-related function, even if it is not the core of their work.

It sounds like the survey was done post-pandemic and then asked respondents whether they could've done their jobs without the Internet pre-pandemic. This is a very different survey: it means that the ~20-30% of Americans who lost their jobs in the pandemic are not included in the survey. This is almost half of the labor force (which has been hovering around 60-65% of Americans since 2009).

I'd suspect that there is strong selection bias, in that truckers, factory workers, cashiers, taxi drivers etc. were a lot more likely to lose their jobs in the pandemic and the ones that kept them are much more likely to work for "modern" companies that do require Internet. If you assume 37% of Americans are not in the labor force, 23% were unemployed and hence not in the survey, that implies 70% of the 40% remaining (~28%) require a home Internet connection, with about 3% being those whose employers recently switched to requiring Internet. That seems a lot more reasonable.

US employment rate dropped from 61.1% to 51.3%. So, around 17% of the working population lost their jobs. However, that includes many people outside of direct customer facing jobs.

> There is a difference between jobs that can theoretically be done without home internet access, but that in practice require it. For example, you could theoretically drive a truck without any home internet. But, in practice, most truckers find loads and contracts via load boards, which you obviously need an internet connection to access.

I think this is the crux of it. When you also add in jobs that require checking and responding to an email a couple of times a day, submitting a timesheet or expense reimbursement weekly, etc, then I think the numbers make sense. We're talking about jobs where 99.9% of the work is NOT done online but there are one or two quick tasks that do require an email or mobile app and so technically an internet connection is required.

Having worked for a manufacturing firm, I can guarantee that the workers doing 99% offline work are fed directly by teams that do a lot of their work online, or at least connected to a domain/email server/file server/ERP/etc.

Many of the machines running in the shop didn't have external network access (a few incidents with adult content and management just blocked everything on the floor) but still do email or access plans from the file share or work order itself. Their process was still mostly paper based including large format printing of plans with bar codes for tracking so if the network goes down they can still work.

It's this odd balance of welder demanded processes (workers would boycott new IT or automation tools so they had to hire a new guy to run a parts tower machine) combined with old school practices. When I was there 4 years ago it was mostly old dudes pushing out retirement to do 1 more year of income and buy their truck of choice while management was seeing SEC checks and auditing for tax/securities fraud. I'm surprised it's still in business at this point.

You can work as a factory worker and still require internet access for scheduling days off, getting payroll information, etc. In fact, it's likely that people not working desk jobs are those most in need of home internet access, as they might not be provided such at work.

Even a plumber or electrician will spend the evening sending invoices by email, discussing future bookings, etc.

Ordering parts, dispatching jobs, looking up service manuals, applying for permits...

People like that could get by with dial up if people like the ones reading this comment would stop loading 80MB of JS just so they can save a couple lines of code.

Edit: The dailup part was an exaggeration but if your web app doesn't suck 3g and two bars or a 1Mb down DSL pipe should be fine for most CRUD type business tasks that. There's no reason that signing in and signing up for a shift should take more bandwidth than Craigslist.

... if your web app doesn't suck...

The employee has absolutely no control over that and sure, you could pass regulations - but those regulations are going to be fairly difficult to enforce.

But you know, we could just start trying to make sure everyone has decent internet. Work isn't the only benefits to this.

Or we could try to make the apps we write more efficient AND make sure people have decent internet.

You know, saving data is saving energy.

That is certainly the best solution.

SRSLY!? That's your argument?

Ask me how I know you haven't used dialup recently. First, you can't even get dialup in many places because the pots system has been ripped out and replaced by partial fiber. Second of all, Once you add a phone line and pay for dialup you're looking at a cheap broadband cost.

They could even get by without the Internet if such business were all conducted on the phone. So what?

I'll preface this with noting it's a little odd to act as though adding 80 MB of unnecessary JS is a popular idea on HN.

They couldn't if they needed to work asynchronously. Or if they couldn't speak or hear well over the phone, the likelihood of which approaches 1 if you have so much as a different accent. Or if you don't want the other person to hear your accent.

It's a bit cliche maybe, but I know people who've benefited from all of those features of IP-based communication, and they're reasons to be happy about the Internet. And since just about any telecommunications system that transmits voice can be bullied into transmitting IP packets, there's really little cost.

I mean, we can all agree, I imagine, that many pages have too much JS. But then what do we cut? My idea of what's "useless" is probably different than the people cutting my checks. Saying pages don't need "unnecessary" JS is tautological but not really illuminating. I do think there is plenty of reason lots of people would benefit in their work from single-page applications, not to mention video and audio that would dwarf the JS anyways.

My point is that the kinds of CRUD and spreadsheet manipulation tasks that most people who don't work at a screen all day need to do on a screen can be done over a trivially tiny pipe if that pipe is used with at least a token amount of efficiency.

But they're not, for many reasons.

> if your web app doesn't suck.

This may be the least reasonable assumption I have ever read.

Everything is more important than that... until it's not. People don't know what they really care about until their assumptions are unchecked. When nobody HAS to use their phone for certain online actions, those actions likely won't be optimized for mobile, and people will care much more about popup tooltips, navigation, color scheme, logos and branding, extra random reporting, etc. Once people are forced to use mobile and it's not a couple minute experience once every week or month, then page load speed (and initial page payload size for SPA) become very important to those people.

Assuming I did bring in an 80mb js library into a web app wouldn't there be something in the build process that removes unreachable code? I mostly have backend and mobile experience with only a little frontend experience. But I agree many modern pages are way larger then they really need to be.

IMO most websites are products, and possibly irrational too. Whether or not to prioritize a poor customer is more of a business judgment than an engineering one.

And if we’re talking mobile, wouldn’t an app experience be the best?

> People like that could get by with dial up

Speeds 10x that shouldn't even be an option in 2020 honestly. It's a failure of capitalism that they are.

We shouldn’t blame capitalism for the obvious outcome of government-granted monopolies held by maybe one telco and one cableco if you’re lucky.

How are they monopolies? Competition is allowed. They choose to not compete in markets, either by not entering the market or buying up competitors. America used to have a stronger take on competition law, but for decades it's considered anti-business government regulation.

Google Fiber only launched in a handful of cities where the local bureaucracy had committed to bypassing many longstanding procedural barriers. They found laying new cables to be all but impossible everywhere else.

Do you think consistent campaign contributions to both parties, relentless industry lobbying and this all being perfectly legal may have something to do with it as well?

So did factories not exist prior to the internet? How on earth did people get paid, coordinate shift changes, or ask their boss for time off back in the 1950s?

I think the reaction from GP was likely due to a difference in how people interpret the meaning of the word can't, as in some people mean "I currently use the internet because non-internet solutions are inconvenient" vs "It's literally impossible to do my job without the internet or losing the internet would make my job completely irrelevant(such as being a dev on the Google search team)."

I think that even for work from home jobs, if the internet disappeared tomorrow a lot of employers would figure out how to do the important stuff with non-internet solutions, like accepting longer business timelines, couriering paper documents, sending faxes (this might require getting fax machines and landlines for employees, but companies will pay for them if they need to), and having telephone meetings instead of Zoom.

Some employers would probably cut employees/tasks that weren't adding as much value as the effort required to shift to non-internet solutions, but I don't think it would be as high as a literal interpretation of this survey would imply.

> How on earth did people get paid, coordinate shift changes, or ask their boss for time off back in the 1950s?

A lot of clerical paper processing jobs and bean counting that don't exist anymore because of computers, and more recently, the internet.

Indeed - my dad just happen to retire the same week the eliminated the steno pool since everyone was starting to get computers on their desk (286's with WordPerfect - ah, the days)

> I think the reaction from GP was likely due to a difference in how people interpret the meaning of the word can't, as in some people mean "I currently use the internet because non-internet solutions are inconvenient" vs "It's literally impossible to do my job without the internet or losing the internet would make my job completely irrelevant(such as being a dev on the Google search team)."

This is why I never pay attention to self reported studies. You could argue they are crafted to make the most clickbait headlines while also saying nothing of worth.

What about people working for companies who's policies dictate that certain actions must be done through some internet system (eg time clocks, payroll, scheduling, etc). It might be physically possible to ask someone else to do some of these things for one, but it also might not be allowed. EG if all time off requests including sick days have to be entered in a web scheduling system, then it may not be possible to just do the old "ask the boss for the day off" and have it not be considered an unexcused absence by corporate higher-ups.

If you're a remotely decent employee, your manager will figure out a workaround or help you get an exception to the policy. It's hard to find good help, and if you're fired because of a completely inflexible system where you have to clock in with an internet system, then you weren't really fired for the lack of internet, you were fired because management wanted an excuse to fire you.

For the segment of the workforce that we're taking about, there's no such thing as weekly 1:1's or quarterly skip level meetings (ie I scheduled a meeting with my bosses boss.) "Your manager" is overworked and underpaid, same as you, and has no such luxury, nor any real power. It's just not going to scale if every single one of their direct reports, out of dozens, suddenly needs to sign in by hand because the Internet is down. Kafka isn't relegated to Soviet fairy tales, even top performers get dinged for showing up minutes late. Why do you think the "set your own hours" aspect of being an Uber driver is so compelling? It's not because 100% of middle management are nice happy people who love their jobs.

Be glad you've never had to work somewhere where you're disposable, and your boss is forced to fire you for reasons they don't even believe in, like being mere minutes late. If your shift starts at 7:30 AM, you have to be there at 7:00 AM to be in line to have punched into the time clock before it turns 7:30. Making it to work in time to stand in line for the time clock before 7:30 isn't good enough.

For most of those functions a smart phone or a local library would suffice. I read "can't do our jobs" as being "literally cannot complete work or perform on-paid-time duties".

A smart phone is still an internet connection at home.

It's possible that some of the 70% are not considering their local library, though.

How does a library help in 2020? Going anywhere but your home is unreliable during shelter in place orders.

So if you don't have an internet connection at home, you don't have an internet connection.

Also, resiliency is a good thing. It is not redundancy if the two services have different business continuity profiles.

The entire public library network is closed out where I'm at (save for curbside pickups).

Another kneejerk thought also suggests that whatever few(?) that are open might take on increased traffic, at odds with distancing guidelines/mandates.

> A smart phone is still an internet connection at home.

I don't use my personal phone for work. Anyone who does use their personal phone for work is being abused by their employer.

The argument you've parroted is against using your personal phone number for work. That's abusive, because it allows the employer to send you work when you're off the clock.

Using your smartphone to log into your payroll site, or as the internet bridge to the company VPN, is not any different from using a broadband line and a laptop to do the same thing. Those systems shouldn't be able to interrupt you when you're not working, but they might still be accessed through a smartphone in lieu of a desktop or laptop.

I use my personal phone number as my pager when I am oncall. That doesn't feel abusive.

> you've parroted

Parroting implies blind repeating. I honestly believe my statement though. It's not parroting.

> That's abusive, because it allows the employer to send you work when you're off the clock.

No, it's abusive when doing work functions requires the use of my personal phone. Accessing an employer's VPN should not be done using devices or services that are wholly owned and paid for by me.

Allowing my employer to notify me, while I'm off the clock, of any work that's available or scheduling changes or emergencies definitely falls under personal devices can be used.

But when the employer requires you to use your personal devices and personal internet service to actually do any function of that work then that's where you and I clearly disagree.

> Using your smartphone to log into your payroll site

Payroll sites necessarily must be accessible from outside of the work VPN: payroll sites' reporting ability must be accessible after my employment has been terminated.

> or as the internet bridge to the company VPN

Using someone's personal internet service or phone service is unethical. Employers should pay for the internet bridge to the company VPN and all devices and services necessary to connect to it.

> is not any different from using a broadband line and a laptop to do the same thing

Nope, it isn't. Who owns it though?

> Those systems shouldn't be able to interrupt you when you're not working

Indeed.

> but they might still be accessed through a smartphone in lieu of a desktop or laptop.

Sure, but who owns it?

This is an overly broad statement. Everywhere I've worked where I'm expected to be reachable by phone offered a stipend to pay for the service. And all of them were respectful of my personal time.

An abusive employer is going to make unreasonable demands of you, regardless of whether you use your personal phone for work.

> Everywhere I've worked where I'm expected to be reachable by phone offered a stipend to pay for the service.

Well your experience is more the exception than the rule today given my friends, family, and own anecdata.

> An abusive employer is going to make unreasonable demands of you, regardless of whether you use your personal phone for work.

Let me know when there's enough employers that most people without negotiating leverage can actually be employed by one that's not abusive.

Sure, but... not everywhere has a local library. Parts of Indiana do not, and if you aren't in the library's tax district, you might have to pay to use the library to get a library card, which allows you to use the computers/internet. To make matters worse, in rural areas libraries might be in the next town over and have short hours. In one city, their summer hours were basically 10-3: During the summer, they closed at 6. They had very limited hours on saturday and were always closed on Sunday. You could, quite literally, work most of the time they were open. And for more fun, they only had limited space for computers. If there was a wait, you only had 30 minutes of time.

You should see the library that serves the Las Vegas Strip. I went there to use the wifi last year. It's in a terrible neighborhood. It's smaller than my bedroom. There are four computers, and according to the librarian on duty, they're occupied from open to closing every day, so if you want to use one you have to line up before it opens.

People who say, "Just use the library" are people who have never tried to just use a library.

That's an incredibly limited view of the subject.

I could theoretically write code with a laptop from the back of a camel in the Sahara desert. That doesn't mean it qualifies as "able to do my job".

I suspect the poll answers would be different if they presented more nuanced options than the three choices in the pie chart.

Yes, and for many people that smartphone is their home internet connection.

Entering any kind of credentials or confidential information into a public computer is (or should be) a big no-no.

> This doesn't really make sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to me either.

> Only 30% of Americans have jobs where they can't work from home?

"Only" implies you think 30% is too low? You think more Americans can work without home internet?

I'm surprised it's as high as 30%. I think a lot more Americans can't work without home internet.

> Truck drivers, factory workers, cashiers, taxi drivers, etc all make up less than 30% of America? I dont buy that.

I'm not familiar with truck drivers. But I can easily see that they would need the internet to simply receive a phone call to alert them that a route has been contracted by their contracting company. Or to engage in a route marketplace. That's going to necessitate not only "home" internet, but probably also mobile internet too.

I'm not familiar with factory workers. But I hear they're overworked. And if they don't have home internet that often means they also don't have a way to get in contact with their bosses outside of the factory.

Cashiers need the internet because their employer's scheduling system is available on the internet. Not only that, but their schedules are often produced last-minute. Are you saying that a cashier must go to the retail premise and risk getting infected just to check to see whether they're scheduled for the day?

Taxi drivers... absolutely need the internet to work. Can you imagine being in a taxi today without having the ability to pay via your credit card? That's absurd.

What about emergency services like fire fighters, EMS, doctors ... are you saying that they don't need home internet?

I'm saying you're wrong. The modern world has moved into a place where we're hyper connected. Everyone's employers communicate on the internet. Lack of home internet hinders everyone's ability to work.

Truck drivers 100% need home internet to get jobs, broker loads, fill out the required paperwork, etc.

Worked in the industry for a bit, while it used to be a dinosaur, it's actually super tech-focused now for many.

There was a time when you paid by credit card using a mechanical copy of the credit card and data was manually entered at the end of the day. It sadly doesn't work well with new style credit cards that don't have raised numbers, but for that you could just take a picture.

It's not ideal, but it can work. The internet has made a lot of things happen smoother or faster, and some things happen in "real time" that previously could not, but as a whole... life without it wasn't horrible.

Kids used to write notes to each other instead of text messages.

Cashiers used to look at a schedule that was manually created and posted on the break room door on sundays. If you weren't working that day, you'd ask a friend to check for you.

> It's not ideal, but it can work.

It "can" work, yes.

But we don't ride horses any more; automobiles are here to stay. Suggesting that transportation isn't necessary for employment disenfranchises millions of people from reaching employment. I believe there's laws (or, at least, certainly ethics) that employers must compensate employees when they use their personal transportation for their employer's purposes. And, good employers offer public or private transportation to their own employees -- in the form of a "company car" or paid public transportation.

Likewise, the internet is here to stay. Suggesting that the internet isn't necessary for employment disenfranchises millions of people from reaching employment. Many lucky ones do have their own personal devices and services they can use. But I am of the opinion that this is unethical and should be more closely related to the "company car" or paid public transportation or compensating employees when they use their personal devices.

Kids do still write notes to each other. Thinking that a text message isn't a valid form of writing notes is ignoring the advancing methods of communication and burying your head in the sand. Kids' notes now include animated pictures, "memes", with whole websites dedicated to finding and creating them. Are you suggesting that these aren't valid forms of communication?

Bosses change schedules often. I've seen schedules be posted on Sunday, changed on Monday, and changed again Tuesday afternoon. And even if that weren't the case, your coworkers aren't friends: in a cutthroat environment your coworker will lie to you, state that you're not scheduled when you are, and your boss will fire you for not showing up. That happens when jobs are scarce. Fortunately, the internet helps to solve that problem by allowing employees to look at the schedule online.

Times change. Having access to the internet wasn't required forty years ago. It is required today.

Please don't misunderstand me; I didn't say anything was invalid, just that all these things existed before the internet, and could exist without it in a less streamlined way.

It's actual somewhat of an interesting topic when you think of it.

Transport went from walking -> riding animals -> driving + flying. Communication went from talking -> moving physical messages -> radio -> telephone -> internet

I wish hackernews forums fostered better discussions on topics that are out of date the way reddit might. Unlikely anyone will ever see this reply.

Are there any good books that cover this sort of techno (r)evolution in depth?

It's also impossible to apply for most jobs offline.

I remember those days. I wish the world was more like them. But the reality is, it isn't.

You could make the same argument about electricity, or a phone line, or hell, anything except for a roof, food, water, and a mode of transport to work.

The thing is, for modern life, you do need more than basic necessities. You do need electricity, you do need a telephone, and, more and more, you do need the internet.

You don't need these things, at home, to get your actual job done, even if you're a programmer, in most cases. You need them to do all the other things, like pay bills, use bank accounts, and so on.

> At the very least work email can be done on a phone.

The question was whether respondents needed to use the internet at home, not whether they need a physical wire going to their home. Needing LTE/3G at home to do work email = needing a home internet connection.

> Truck drivers, factory workers, cashiers, ...

For all of these, a lot of shift scheduling is done online these days.

Truck Drivers: Many are independent contractors. So, "one-man business owner and also sole employee" might be a better model and makes it abundantly clear that an internet connection is required.

Cashiers: there are vanishingly few people who are full-time cashiers and don't have a second or third job. Possible their other job requires a home internet connection.

Factory work: Most folks I know who work in factories tend to hop from job to job every year or two. In other words, they're constantly in job search mode. Job searches happen online.

Healthcare: Most healthcare professions require CEUs, which can often be done at least partially online and always require a home internet connection if taken seriously.

You’re confusing ”requires internet at home” with ”requires nothing else”. For example nurses have a very hands-on jobs, but have to login to a portal to see their shifts for the coming week

>> Truck drivers, factory workers, cashiers, taxi drivers,

And why would you assume that such jobs don't require internet access? Shift workers are sent their schedules via email. They talk to their bosses after hours via email. Factory workers often complete mandatory training (health/safety certs etc) from home. Just as once upon a time each employee having a phone number was once optional, basic administration of any vocation now requires internet access.

I'd say that monastic orders probably can go without, but I equally assume that there is an abbot out there somewhere staring at a screen and mumbling about how slow the wifi gets on sunday mornings.

>Only 30% of Americans have jobs where they can't work from home?

You're misreading. It's not that 70% can work entirely from home, it's 70% can't never work from home. I don't believe that number either, but that's a different topic.

>At the very least work email can be done on a phone.

So, the internet connection that they use at home is different from "home internet" for the purposes of this article? If you really want to spit that hair, what is the meaningful distinction?

Most minimum wage workers today use scheduling apps for shifts/entering time sheets, have online training, accept job documents/agreements online etc. So having a stable internet connection is absolutely a requirement for these jobs.

> But I still remain skeptical that so many claim they require home internet. At the very least work email can be done on a phone.

The graph says "internet at home", not "home internet". If that is the exact wording of the question asked, then some responders might reasonably interpret that their mobile plan would count.

I admit it is a bit confusing that the article says "home internet connection" in other places. It would be nice if the survey question and article were more specific.

> Truck drivers, factory workers, cashiers, taxi drivers, etc all make up less than 30% of America?

I can easily imagine that all of those could require an Internet connection. Could be something as simple as getting information crucial for your job exclusively via electronic communication.

Oh hey, a thing I have background in!

- Restaurants and retail businesses also rely heavily on Internet, particularly for handling things like loyalty and credit card processing.

- Since many of those businesses take orders online, they also need an incoming connection in order to receive them. (You can still do this over the phone if it's just takeout, obv, but it doesn't scale nearly as well, especially at peak.)

- Additionally, lots of back-office software for managing them is now cloud-based, which (depending on your scope) can impact basic operational functions like supply chains, scheduling, etc.

My guess would be it's because "Americans Say" and what people SAY in answering these types of things isn't exactly the same as the reality of what they REALLY need.

Yeah. Surely a lot of people who "need" it for incidental tasks like checking their shifts (mentioned already about 5 times by commenters) or a payroll site would adapt if they didn't have home internet or especially, if home internet wasn't a reasonable expectation.

In my last several white-collar jobs I could have got by without home internet with only small inconvenience.

I read it so: of all the people who can work from home at all, 70% require an internet connection.

Factory workers or construction workers can't do any work from home at all. But maybe people who do custom tailoring, or small-scale bakery like custom wedding cakes, can still WFH without a broadband connection being constantly up.

Seems like they underestimate everything that the internet powers, chat apps and email perhaps.

You are mistaking home internet being a _necessity_, with home internet being _sufficient_. The fact that they need home internet does not mean they can work from home.

Yeah, seems odd. I remember seeing that retail is still the #1 employer not too long ago, and that doesn't require internet.

Switching shifts with coworkers is so much easier with the internet. I know of a large German company that has a "shift market" where employees can switch shifts as long as certain constraints are fulfilled. You can either switch with coworkers directly or "auction off" your shift by giving a timeframe where you want your new shift to be and select the most convenient from the coworkers that answered.

If I were an employee there, I'd say that I need an internet connection at home.

Unless you don't clock out on your timesheet until you get home ...

It does now. No one is going back to paper books and paper schedules.

Truckers book loads over the internet.

Service workers use the internet to see what their shift is going to be, respond to work issues/surveys.

Etc.

The administration part of a truck drivers job likely requires a personal internet connection these days.

My neighbor works in a factory and was able to do some work from home during covid.

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