Comment by Larrikin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Larrikin | Hacker News Reader

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People were perfectly fine with 56k when most of the Internet was just text. Stalling the internet at that speed could have been argued for by saying anyone who wants DSL/Cable at home just wants it for Napster.

Fast Internet speeds allow for unthought of innovations. If we get up to terabyte speeds, maybe nobody cares about watching Netflix if we can now have holodecks that become fully immersible experiences that allow for educational training and, to your chagrin, entertainment as well. Maybe LLMs are basically free because everyone can just have all of human content constantly updated.

Letting speeds stall stifles innovation and let's Netflix just continually up their prices for the same 720p content you refer to.

> maybe nobody cares about watching Netflix if we can now have holodecks that become fully immersible experiences that allow for educational training and, to your chagrin, entertainment as well

I don't see why billions of dollars should be spent, for say, less than a low single digit percentage of the rural population who want to stick a machine to their head for educational training.

It's infinitely cheaper, a more sane and healthier decision to move to the location where they can sit in front of the instructor, if they value this education.

So just stop being poor. Got it.

If we're going full reductio ad absurdum and taking snipes instead of conversation, then maybe the appropriate response is: You can be poor all you want, but don't expect someone else to subsidize your life.

My comment isn't really that absurd in the context of this whole thread and its insistence that decent quality internet service is something only the wealthy and/or those who live in urban areas should have access to.

> You can be poor all you want, but don't expect someone else to subsidize your life.

The rich and wealthy have their lifestyles heavily, heavily subsidized, so why not the poor as well?

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