Google Fiber’s stated aim is to improve access to high broadband internet connections for the communities it’s being rolled out in.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this isn’t going so well with take ups of the fiber service in the poor parts of Kansas City being a quarter of those in middle class areas.
It’s not surprising an expensive service like fiber internet isn’t taken up by folk who don’t have money, but the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots should be a concern as access to today’s communication tools is key to economic progress.
During the rollouts of the railways, telegraph and motor car it was giving working people access to the new technologies that drove growth. If internet access becomes only available to the few then today’s technological developments deliver on their promise.