Cyberspace: Public Space vs. Accessibility Standards

We would all like to think about cyberspace as a huge public space for people to be able to freely surf the web. But after reading the chapter by Best, it is obvious that this is not the case. For those of us fortunate to live in the US, and go to a large university, we most likely don't even think twice how lucky we are to have cyberspace constantly at our fingertips. Unfortunately, not everybody around the world is as fortunate as we are. Although the Internet is easily accessible to us, it is not that easy for people around the world. So yes, in a sense, cyberspace is a public space, but in another sense it is not. IF you have access to the internet, you may consider cyberspace a public space. But it takes a lot to get this access. As described in Best's chapter, one of the biggest problems is the expense of paying for rural areas around to world to receive access; let alone who is going to pay for these expenses. Another drawback is the policies set forth by what the government allows. Although Best stated that the cost of these technologies continue to drop, it doesn't seem to make it any easier to provide access to rural areas. All together, it seems as though cyberspace is gradually becoming more of a public space (public being a reference to world wide use) but it's taking a lot of time and money to get there. Since we all use the world wide web everyday... eveybody in the world should be able to freely use it as well.

Discussion Questions:
1) Will we ever be able to provide Internet access to all rural areas around the world? What impact will this have?
2) How do the rural communities that are receiving internet access reacting? What impact does this make on them?
3) Will technologies ever be affordable enough to provide world wide service? Will new technologies continue to emerge that are expensive because they are new? How do we know what to accept and what to decline?