Keep 'em Stupid

1995 the single Telecom company, C & W, deigned
to allow Jamaicans to access the Internet.

Connectivity was offered free from April to November.

Between April and November the number of
subscribers was about 17%.

After November, when people had to pay for it,
the number of subscribers remained at 17%.

In August of 2010 Internet penetration is 17%.

Those who can afford it will use Flow others C & W.
Everyone anticipated what Digicel would do.

Digicel entered the market with an extremely overpriced
'4G' connection.

Whether Digicel banks on its name, or assumes there is
a lacuna with coverage or resistance to the other
providers; (primarly C & W, operating as Lime, it
is about to learn failure.

The problem with Connectivity is price.

Firstly, computers are ridiculously expensive.
Crap notebooks sell for over 65k.

Secondly, cheap connection, which was less than
$500 a month unlimited, (using a cell phone as
a modem)has been withdrawn.

This helpful service which was island wide has
been replaced by charges based on usage; that
is per Meg.

This was done to kill the service and prevent the
less wealthy from connectivity.

The average person who is interested will gain
Internet at school or work, maybe the library.
And that's it.

Unless they have a notebook and know the
'hot spots' or can hack into a system
there is no Internet for them.

As the majority of Jamaicans haven't been sold on the
Internet this is not a problem.

Although a pump attendant might have a Blackberry
phone as a status symbol he has never done more
than make and receive voice calls.

The good thing about having such a small Internet
community is that it is easy to keep the people
stupid.

The problem is, how stupid is stupid enough?

Some may aver the population is remarkably ignorant
of just about everything and as the desire to learn
has been destroyed, keeping Internet service expensive
is unnecessary.

Unlike China which has to censor and track Internet
usage, Jamaica is freed from that role of 'Big Brother.'

To have maintained 17% penetration for over 15 years
is testimony to the success of the dumbing down process.