It empowers - and thus deepens the divide
between the haves and have-nots, the developed and the
developing world, the knowing and the ignorant, the computer
illiterate.
In short: the Internet is an elitist medium. Publicly, this is
an unhealthy posture. "Internetophobia" is already
discernible. People (and politicians) talk about how unsafe
the Internet is and about its possible uses for racial, sexist
and pornographic purposes. The wider public is in a state of
awe.
So, site builders and owners will do well to begin to improve
their image: provide free access to schools and community
centres, bankroll internet literacy classes, freely distribute
contents and software to educational institutions, collaborate
with researchers and social scientists and engineers. In
short: encourage the view that the Internet is a medium
catering to the needs of the community and the
underprivileged, a mostly altruist endeavour. This also
happens to make good business sense by educating and
conditioning a future generation of users. He who visited a
site when a student, free of charge - will pay to do so when
made an executive.
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