The Internet Should be Considered Essential

All things considered, the internet has come to us very recently. The official birthdate of the internet is January 1st 1983. This means that there is already generations of adults that have lived a life not knowing what life would be like without the internet. Over the close to 40 years of evolution the internet has taken a life of its own. With our increasing dependency of it how do we not consider it a life essential?

I grew up not knowing about the internet until my teenage years. To me the 90's was really when I really came face to face with the internet. In those times it was more of a fun thing that you used to play games and download music. The bandwidth that we had back then was still dial up. You'd be lucky if you got the full 56 kbit/s speed. It's safe to say that not a lot of us saw the true benefits of this platform.

Fast forward 10 years and you start to see the speeds go from 56 kb/s to 1 mb/s. 56 to 1000 is a significant increase. From then on we kept doubling in speed every year. The internet wasn't only through home computers anymore we had Wi-Fi and and mobile data. We were starting to become more connected through the internet through videos and the advent of social media.

At this point people started seeing the true applications of the platform and companies were starting to push their clients to using online methods of transactions. It was a means to help cut costs for many companies and as an added benefit bookkeeping would be a lot easier with data being stored on their computers.

This means that we were pushed toward using credit/debit/online banking to pay for things. Our bills would be emailed to us or displayed on a mobile app. We'd be going through websites and chatbots to find the help we need for products and services. The whole world has changed and the way we interact with companies is increasingly electronic.

After this pandemic this holds true to not only companies but with government services. We're now seeing taxes and benefits filed online, our kids are starting to go to school online, and even getting health treatment is going online. These are pretty big changes for us and I don't think this is a temporary thing.

The 2020 pandemic was basically a world changer. Everyone in the world has been affected by it and even after it ends nothing will be the same. We will always be paranoid about another pandemic hit. This is why I believe that the internet has become more essential than ever.

There's no escaping the need of this platform. One way or another we will have to use it because we'll need help for something. With governments and companies increasing our dependence of the internet we face the inevitable. So why are we still charging everyone so much for the internet?

The government may have focused on making everything more electronic but they didn't consider that not everyone has access to the internet. Those that can't afford high speed internet is put at a dramatic disadvantage in this new world we live in. While companies take advantage of the lack of regulations to make money off increased internet speeds.

For those that are looking to get rid of socio-economic inequalities we have to look at access to the internet. To level out the playing field the government has to look at providing free internet to everyone. This platform is not only a method of opportunity for those that are less fortunate, it is also a learning tool.

One can say you can learn how to do anything over the internet and this is becoming increasingly so when you consider all of the videos and how to webpages there are on the internet. Job opportunities and ideas are out there but unfortunately for some, you can only access them through the internet.

If we are to help our economy out, we have to look at providing internet for the less fortunate. During the pandemic these people aren't able to access the internet as easily. Lockdown has prevented many from going to libraries or businesses that provide free internet. Perhaps we need to make sure that Wi-Fi can be provided throughout the city for free.