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Comment by jdimov | Hacker News Reader

Spot-on. Also, don't get me started on mobile internet and broadband. Every time I go to America it's like going to a 3rd world country.

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America is big and as different as Europe. Even though most Americans speak English, it's not a uniform country as us Europeans think. But don't confuse the people with the state. They're not the same. The Americans I met were generally quite nice and willing to help an (obvious) tourist out. Bureaucrats? They thrive in chaos.

> and as different as Europe.

How? I just have a hard time imagining how a place with dozens of languages and cultures (I think that cultures with very different languages are likely to be very different from each other) and all of that can be less varied than a place like the US.

Exactly. The difference between NYC and a rural Mississippian town may seem big, but it's nothing compared to the difference between, say, Copenhagen and a rural Spanish town.

No, it's not. America was formed by European immigrants remember? Each sought out their own place. The Bayou, NY City, Texas, North Dakota, San Fransico… All with their own culture. This struck me as I drove from New Orleans through Alabama. I couldn't even understand the Alabama-english..

I couldn't even understand the Alabama-english..

They still speak English, though, just like the vast majority of Americans. Europe has a huge number of different languages, and especially in Southern Europe it's not uncommon for even young people to not speak any English at all - meaning there's not even a common language that all Europeans speak.

I'm certainly not saying that all of US is the same. I'm saying that the differences are smaller than the differences you see in Europe. And I'm saying that as someone who've lived in the US and Europe and visited a great number of European countries.

I feel more like I'm in a foreign country in Mississippi than I do when in Germany. And I'm an American who doesn't even speak German.

Yes, American cities are literally akin to 3rd world countries.

Some of them, yes. The poverty...

Proof?

I just want to pitch in saying that India has faster and cheaper internet than San Jose. Sad, true and 'WTF' unbelievable.

True. I was VERY surprised by the quality of mobile internet (and mobile phone connection in general) when I was in San Francisco and around Silicon Valley). Here in Poland I've got 4g connection practically everywhere in bigger cities (15-20mbits download 3-6mbits upload, ping ~50-70ms tested several times) and in SF I was sometimes struggling to get some decent signal...

Care to fill us in with details to go along with your snark? Which part of 3rd world America did you visit? Anecdotally I enjoy decently fast broadband and mobile data coverage.

I went to NYC/Philly/NJ last summer..

T-Mobile barely exists out of the city itself, and yeah, speeds are abysmal. $50 for a sim card too...

Anecdotally I went to the Swedish countryside in january; where I got 16Mb/s over 3g. (and it was free because: EU roaming is free on my carrier)

To be fair, you're talking about a distant 4th place provider that most in the US understand will not work great outside of major population areas. I would understand if you had issues with one of the big two (VZ/ATT). Also to be fair, Sweden is about the size of California.

But with far fewer people living there.

What carrier offers free EU roaming?

T-Mobile!

3 (Hutchinson)

also free 4G with no data caps.. they might be slower than the others but they own their own cell towers and offer the best deals.

By definition the US can't be like a 3rd world country (hint: 3rd world country is not what I think you mean to say [1])

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Since we're smugly throwing around Wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile

Had you seen my body language when I posted the comment, you might not have decided that it was made out of any sense of smugness.

NOTE:

Since my comments in this thread were downvoted, implying that they were not taken in the spirit they were intended, my contribution to this thread should be considered obsolete. I'll leave my original comments in place to serve as a reminder to myself to be careful about what I say around here in future.

[OBSOLETE]

No need to play the martyr. It's a tangential issue. If you brought it up in conversation people would say something like "ha ha yeah, you know what I mean" and continue discussing the original topic.

There it quickly dissipates because voice is quickly damped but here it is just noise that takes time to be damped out.

I absolutely am not playing the martyr. I raised an issue that I felt was of importance. The fact that others disagree is something I'm willing to live with, but it by no means sways me.

First, no, key word being 'like' - it's a comparison.

Second, yes, you're right, but no need to be a pedant, the meaning original commenter employed is widely accepted and understood.

Understood as what? I'm presuming you're implying that "3rd world country" == "country in the developing world", as it's often used. Although you might consider it to be fully acceptable, there are many that disagree that that equality be taken as a norm, including the head of the World Bank [1].

Fact of the matter is that use of the "3rd world" as a descriptor is contentious at the very least and I opted to draw attention to this fact.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/third-world-term-sh...

I'm not sure why this guy was down-voted. There is a big (and maybe worldwide spread) confusion about the definition of first/second/third world.

For example, Qatar is a third-world and it's pretty well developed. Turkey is a first-world and yet it's an under-developed country.

As it says in the article:

>Due to the complex history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed upon definition of the Third World.

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