Accurate snapshot of the internet state in Cuba, well written from a american point of view.
As the cofounder of one of the most popular cuban websites, revolico.com, I'm suffering this since 2007. We launch revolico on December '07, on march '08 the government blocked our IPs, then when we circumvent this censorship, they made a DNS spoofing nationwide.
Nevertheless revolico is still the #1 classifieds ads site of the island, way ahead of the government offering, our users are doing a lot of crazy and creative stuff to get acces to the site.
So Cuba, besides having an internet penetration of less than 5%, strongly censor the link, which is even sadder. I predict that access will increase in the near/medium term, but unfortunately proportionally with the censorship.
Interestingly, Cuba has developed an alternative network for the distribution of many types of digital content: people with access to content download it and distribute it using portable hard drives and usb sticks. A friend of mine recently visited Cuba, and according to him, these "paquete shops" are everywhere. There are standard bundles of content (tv shows, movies, viral videos, news, music, etc), and a la carte service. According to him, the content is consistently up-to-date (the latest Game of Thrones episode is available within 2-3 days). The shops themselves have developed brands, part of the value they provide is curatorial, as each bundle is different. Some of them have even branched out into adding their own bundled content, including neighborhood classifieds (craigslist, anyone?).
Information really only travels in one direction, so it is not even close to the real internet, but we could image an enterprising paquete shop bundling in some encryption software and forum software to enable two-way communication.
The Internet penetration in Brazil is 51%. That's actually fairly decent.
I think the most important difference is that in Brazil, if you don't have Internet access, you might at least have a friend who does, or you can go to a cibercafé. In Cuba you don't have that option.
Brazil is a democracy, Cuba isn't. Just as North Korea, but much closer to America, Cuba is above all a curiosity, a place semi-frozen in time, where ingenuity is no luxury, if you want to live.
The absolute magnitude of internet users is a different matter than percentage. Brazil is a huge and populous country; I'm not surprised there are more total people without internet access.
I realize off-island access is slow or impossible, but this seems like the perfect application for mesh-based WISPs to spring up. On-island resources would at least be accessible to other on-island users.
Where's google with their phalanx of balloons and a cached copy of wikipedia?
Maybe someone can help me change my view on this topic. I don't see why we should be in such a rush to bring the third world online. Shouldn't we be focused on making sure they have clean water, food, and jobs that pay enough for them to afford the internet first?
All these efforts to put smartphones in the hands of starving people seems motivated by mega-corporations eager to "open up new markets", exploit vulnerable people, and increase their tracking datasets using people too naive to know any better. Most Americans resist privacy invasions because they've been a bit educated on the topic, so let's move on to people who don't know better?
> "Jobs that pay enough for them to afford the internet"
A strong argument for getting the third world online is to help create more jobs. This sounds like a corporate sound bite, but it's a complex issue where job opportunities are a few degrees removed from providing broad access to the internet in and of itself.
In a lot of developing countries the only jobs that are available are supporting existing industries that are heavily dominated by mega-corporations that are much more focused on resource extraction/profits than they are on developing human capital: Clothing industry in India, Tourism in Mexico/Caribbean, Mining Natural Resources everywhere.
While much of the initial profits and use cases for bring a country online are frivolous and tend to mirror 1st world consumption patterns, the internet access is critical infrastructure for supporting a more decentralized economy.
As adoption of the internet, and telecommunications infrastructure more generally take hold, economic opportunities that didn't exist before will start to emerge: Mobile payments in Kenya, Bitcoin merchants in Chile, or even the selling US produced content in Cuba (the "paquete").
Access to decentralized communication networks enables people in developing countries to participate in the economy on more favorable terms and enables people to work and start businesses without having to work through existing gatekeepers (I think this is why people have responded so negatively to the internet.org model).
I would love to see some studies on internet or network driven economic development, maybe as an alternative to Import Substitution.
Second, in many ways the developing world is better leveraging the internet than the developed world. Travel is a huge issue in the developing world so being able to do remote transactions becomes far more valuable. Access to education and professionals is more limited so information becomes more valuable not less.
Internet access is more valuable than you surmise, I think. Having good telecommunications allows people to coordinate much better, and that efficiency bonus could easily create enough extra real wealth to help with the food, water, and jobs problems.
Heck, having better communications directly helps with food and jobs; you have a much easier time finding the guy who needs a worker or has a spare bag of rice if you're both online. Might even help with "clean water"; you can find information on how to make water potable and sanitation in general.
I couldn't tell you for sure whether getting smartphones to a village is a higher priority than installing a good well, but the smartphones are worth enough that I don't think that either choice is obviously superior.
While, I am sure governments at some level try to reduce poverty, but they can't do it without educating the people. Internet is rather cheap and provides a great way for the same.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
Everything associated with Cuba right now feels like financial opportunity for insiders. How does this go down any other way than the Soviet privatisation did? Everything from resort development, in some cases re-developemnt since American companies still have or had businesses on the island before Communism - to technical infrastructure. How does it not be that process?
I recently visited the island. Foreigners are prohibited from providing internet access to Cubans. Jail time for the offense is in the order of 30years+.
of course the Cuban authorities could shoot it down or jam the signal but it might be fun anyway. I wonder how many cubans have devices that could connect to the internet if it were available.
Justified paragraphs are mostly useful for text laid out in columns (i.e. Newspapers and magazines). This way when you are reading the second and subsequent columns, the eye can easily find the start of the line/column.
Most blogs are single column. Justifying the text will create variations in the space between words which makes it harder to read with little benefit other than an overall aesthetic that may or may not be more pleasing to look at as a whole.
[+] [-] hcentelles|10 years ago|reply
As the cofounder of one of the most popular cuban websites, revolico.com, I'm suffering this since 2007. We launch revolico on December '07, on march '08 the government blocked our IPs, then when we circumvent this censorship, they made a DNS spoofing nationwide.
Nevertheless revolico is still the #1 classifieds ads site of the island, way ahead of the government offering, our users are doing a lot of crazy and creative stuff to get acces to the site.
So Cuba, besides having an internet penetration of less than 5%, strongly censor the link, which is even sadder. I predict that access will increase in the near/medium term, but unfortunately proportionally with the censorship.
[+] [-] rdudek|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmisra|10 years ago|reply
Information really only travels in one direction, so it is not even close to the real internet, but we could image an enterprising paquete shop bundling in some encryption software and forum software to enable two-way communication.
More here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/23/cuba-offline-in...
[+] [-] gabrielhn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x5n1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eric_h|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forinti|10 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
Cuba occupies far too much space on the media relative to its size/population.
[+] [-] saint_fiasco|10 years ago|reply
I think the most important difference is that in Brazil, if you don't have Internet access, you might at least have a friend who does, or you can go to a cibercafé. In Cuba you don't have that option.
[+] [-] davidcollantes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadzawistowski|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technofiend|10 years ago|reply
Where's google with their phalanx of balloons and a cached copy of wikipedia?
[+] [-] gandalfu|10 years ago|reply
http://cubayatwittea.blogspot.nl/2013/01/como-acceder-intern...
[+] [-] redwards510|10 years ago|reply
All these efforts to put smartphones in the hands of starving people seems motivated by mega-corporations eager to "open up new markets", exploit vulnerable people, and increase their tracking datasets using people too naive to know any better. Most Americans resist privacy invasions because they've been a bit educated on the topic, so let's move on to people who don't know better?
[+] [-] cmaury|10 years ago|reply
A strong argument for getting the third world online is to help create more jobs. This sounds like a corporate sound bite, but it's a complex issue where job opportunities are a few degrees removed from providing broad access to the internet in and of itself.
In a lot of developing countries the only jobs that are available are supporting existing industries that are heavily dominated by mega-corporations that are much more focused on resource extraction/profits than they are on developing human capital: Clothing industry in India, Tourism in Mexico/Caribbean, Mining Natural Resources everywhere.
While much of the initial profits and use cases for bring a country online are frivolous and tend to mirror 1st world consumption patterns, the internet access is critical infrastructure for supporting a more decentralized economy.
As adoption of the internet, and telecommunications infrastructure more generally take hold, economic opportunities that didn't exist before will start to emerge: Mobile payments in Kenya, Bitcoin merchants in Chile, or even the selling US produced content in Cuba (the "paquete").
Access to decentralized communication networks enables people in developing countries to participate in the economy on more favorable terms and enables people to work and start businesses without having to work through existing gatekeepers (I think this is why people have responded so negatively to the internet.org model).
I would love to see some studies on internet or network driven economic development, maybe as an alternative to Import Substitution.
[+] [-] Retric|10 years ago|reply
Second, in many ways the developing world is better leveraging the internet than the developed world. Travel is a huge issue in the developing world so being able to do remote transactions becomes far more valuable. Access to education and professionals is more limited so information becomes more valuable not less.
[+] [-] orborde|10 years ago|reply
Heck, having better communications directly helps with food and jobs; you have a much easier time finding the guy who needs a worker or has a spare bag of rice if you're both online. Might even help with "clean water"; you can find information on how to make water potable and sanitation in general.
I couldn't tell you for sure whether getting smartphones to a village is a higher priority than installing a good well, but the smartphones are worth enough that I don't think that either choice is obviously superior.
[+] [-] aaggarwal|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zorked|10 years ago|reply
2) "Americans resist privacy invasions" What.
[+] [-] gandalfu|10 years ago|reply
You cab buy/sell almost anything on the black market.
For reference, 1 CUC = 1.10 USD
[+] [-] leroyg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|10 years ago|reply
Its priced at the level to limit access. This is a feature of the communist government, not a bug that needs fixing.
[+] [-] jggonz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electricblue|10 years ago|reply
https://www.google.com/loon/
of course the Cuban authorities could shoot it down or jam the signal but it might be fun anyway. I wonder how many cubans have devices that could connect to the internet if it were available.
[+] [-] _lce0|10 years ago|reply
Call me obsessive but once I've fixed that, their entire article read better.
[+] [-] cmaury|10 years ago|reply
Most blogs are single column. Justifying the text will create variations in the space between words which makes it harder to read with little benefit other than an overall aesthetic that may or may not be more pleasing to look at as a whole.
[+] [-] Nadya|10 years ago|reply
This site does a good job explaining the issue - especially with the two gifs that show the problem of how browsers/CSS handle justified text.
http://designforhackers.com/blog/never-justify-type-on-the-w...