Quote:
Originally Posted by RWJ
Of course not everyone will be able to afford a computer and internet access today, and while they will become ever more accessible in the future, there will always be some who don't have them. But a) the cost of computers and internet have dropped dramatically and will continue to drop and b) this is true of all necessities, or not-really-necessities that are nonetheless essential to a civilized life.
I live in the mid-west, in a region where, according to local historians, the majority of families pre-World War Two didn't have indoor plumbing. This included not only the destitute but also significant numbers of fairly well off rural and farming families. And today, of course, anyone who's not actually homeless has access to indoor plumbing. Standards of living increase, luxuries become necessities, and the benefits eventually permeate society.
Will absolutely everyone one day have a computer and internet access? No; but that's also true of food, shelter and medical care. I suspect that those living at the subsistence level have greater problems than access to computers, ebooks, or paper books, for that matter.
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I agree, standards of living have increased, even for those trapped within poverty. But I think that's the point I'm trying to make, reading shouldn't be a privilidge, it should be a right. As necessary as indoor plumbing, food and shelter, if we're to have any chance of future generations eradicating poverty once and for all. This is my concern with ereaders, the price of entry is far too costly for anyone who can barely scrape by as it is. If the only ones to adopt the technology are those who can afford it, the digital divide becomes even wider, the inequity spreads and reading, in any but the most basic forms, becomes forgotten amongst the poor. Hundreds of years of campaigning for widespread literacy will be lost in a generation or two.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world where reading becomes the sole passtime of the rich.