Internet Access as Government Utility
October 30, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
I think I may have completely changed my mind on something that I completely disagreed with not too long ago. The idea of Internet access being considered in the same lines as a utility like water, electric and perhaps phone service or sewage made absolutely no sense to me.
I’ve always considered Internet access more of a luxury item than something like a utility. If you didn’t have Internet access you could still get by with life.
My decision may have changed though as I started to think about another government service that has been visibly getting replaced by the Internet, and specifically e-mail. That’s right, the United States Postal Service.
Similar to my last post about phone books and yellow pages, I begin to question why we still need and keep the post office around all of our towns and communities. Although we don’t always think about the other services and functions that the United States Postal Service provides to us and our communities, they do a lot more than just deliver envelopes and junk mail to our doors.
Stay tuned as I’ll share more of my thoughts on exactly what the USPS does and how I think the standardization and infrastructure responsibility of the Internet could potentially become the postal service’s next life efforts.
Later we’ll talk about how I really think the infrastructure of the Internet could be a good effort for government involvement.
Image: Gregory Jordan on flickr
I really doubt the USPS is being outdated to the Internet. E-mail wise? Probably. But like you said, the post office does more than distribute letters and junk mail. They also do packages and other stuff. USPS also has a very useful website too.
I still also think that the Internet isn’t and shouldn’t be a necessity. I’ve read some books on teens and people so addicted to the Internet, it’s not even funny.