According to published reports, market mechanisms, and specifically competition, are accomplishing what many decriers of the “digital divide” have long contended only big government could do. The AP, via LiveScience.com, reports, “Middle- and working-class Americans signed up for high-speed Internet access in record numbers in the past year, apparently lured by a price war among phone companies.”
The study, provided by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that broadband subscription “increased 40 percent in households making less than $30,000 a year. Among blacks, it increased 121 percent.” The “digital divide” is beginning to close, as market forces help divergences in broadband access to collide: “Among the $30,000-$50,000 households, 43 percent now have broadband, compared to 68 percent for those making more than $75,000.”
This has been accomplished despite the barriers to competition that have traditionally existed. In many areas, including my own, only one cable company offers its services in a particular area. This means that the competition is coming not only from within a single form of telecom service, but also from among various methods of delivery, such as DSL, cable internet, and satellite/wireless.
The innovation of new delivery methods has raised the prospect of even greater competition, as broadband delivery over power lines (BPL) and increased wireless access become available.
The Pew study also references the dominance of higher wage earners, particularly among whites, who are responsible for the majority of user uploaded content to the Web. This points to a fundamental truth about the creation of wealth and technological innovation: it allows for leisure and productive activity that otherwise would be spent simply laboring. Filming, editing, and uploading digital videos, for instance, is a time and labor-intensive activity, and one that can only be undertaken by someone with the time away from work and luxury to afford both the necessary time and equipment.
But these recent developments point to the potential for a digital collide, in which internet access and the leisure time necessary to take advantage of the Web become a reality for more and more Americans. And these trends point to a measure of this already becoming manifest, as people who don’t have time or energy to surf the Web, for example, are unlikely to voluntarily pay for broadband access. In this way, the digital collide is the result of increasing wealth and prosperity across the economic classes of American society.