I am not going to lie here, but my eyes started to glaze over as my brain began to fog up about half way through reading this riveting paper on the internet standards, new ideas and accessibility. 
I’m not really sure where to begin in discussing cyberspace as a public space and accessiblity standards so I think the best place to start is to look at how are internet started and what is has become now. I am scared to think that the future of the internet and entrepreanuers, who while expanding this technology with their innovative ideas, seem to also control specific aspects of it, to naturally make money. I think it is interesting to see that the internet started as a resource for the government and our military services to better communicate with one another. It just so happened that this technology fit with mainstream America, and the world for that matter, and its desire to communicate more easily with one another as well. From then on the internet was a public space where we as a world started to become dependent on this new technology and its ability to bring us closer together while giving us access to mass amounts of information we had never dreamed of attaining prior to this phenomenon.
When we look at the accessibility of the internet in its original context of becoming a “public space” where anyone can go explore, obtain information or network themselves more efficiently, it really should remain this “public space” with limited amounts of trouble in accessibility. But where do we end in trying to help this “accessibility” reach more and more people? I mean how important, besides filling the pockets of intelligent and go-getting business people, is the internet to the rural people of India? Where they surviving without this phenomenon before we “showed them the light”, most likely, just as we had before the first laptop and wi-fi reached our fingertips. Yet, how would we survive without them now? I think what it comes down to is being able to provide all countries with a resonable plan that fits their per capitia and basic economic structure as well as the structure of their daily lives. Is it important for a rural farmer to access YouTube to watch the “Daily Show’s” latest spoof? I don’t think so. But, it could possibly help him network his farming business by synching his products up with other local farmers and stores to help out his business. The accessibilty of our internet is a dangerous topic of concern at this time. While we may think that its presence within our lives is as necessary as the air we breathe and the water we drink, is it really? While we want to help make the internet as convienient to obtain as possible, I think we need to prioritize what trends we really need to advertise and expand upon first and what other countries around us really need for their overall well being.
Discussion Questions:
Who really understood everything written in this reading? Haha…j/k!
What is the accessibility of the internet to you? How important is it that you can obtain the internet where ever you go, whenever you go?
How important do you think the internet accessibility is to rural countries? Do the costs outweigh the benefits?
