[thelist] Percentage of users still on Dialup? (offlist)

[Bruce McIntyre]

I would tend to agree with you up to a point.  However, users of
broad-band must be first willing to go beyond basic requirements.

1. Must have either Cable to add cable-modem, or must add significant
cost to the phone line.  (adding voice-mail was cheap by comparison)
2. Must have a computer (many lower-end communities only use shared
resources at school, work, or library)
3. Must be interested in the Internet beyond email and AIM.

All of this says that there is a high correlation between socio-economic
strata and Internet use.  There is also still significant differencial
between gender penetration.

But in the end, none of that is important to the primary point... Simple
is better than Complex.  Clean, fast loading, targeted content will win
out over complex, slow, generic content.... While both Microsoft and
Yahoo offer substantial search capabilities, I almost always go to
Google first, or other specialized search tools second.  

12 Year old kids will log on to use AOL, but will focus on AIM and music
videos.  This is true whether or not they have dial-up or broad-band
access.
In the same way, I'll use fast over slow anytime.  And no matter how
fast my access is, I never want it slower.  And once you 'trade-up' it
is still never fast enough.


--
Bruce A. McIntyre
ISS Group (http://www.issgroup.net)
Shaping Visions into Solutions
bmcintyre at issgroup.net
V: 215.942.4718
F: 215.942.4962

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Luther, Ron
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 10:42 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: RE: [thelist] Percentage of users still on Dialup? (offlist)

Bruce McIntyre noted:

>>Even in the most affluent portions of the US, 
>>penetration of broad-band is still less than 20%.  


Hi Bruce,


Just a quick note that perception and 'common sense' are not always 
the same thing as reality.

'higher end vertical services'  !=  'more affluent consumers'.

It's a common mistake. Perhaps the advertising for these services is 
targeted or geared to more affluent segments of the population. Perhaps 
we assume that because they can better afford them, these are the folks 
actually buying them ... but wanting that to be true doesn't make it 
true.


RonL.

(I did the primary research back in the '80s proving that 'higher end' 
phone services (like Call Waiting and Call Forwarding) were more likely 
to be purchased by single, inner-city, black women ... than affluent 
white males. I would not be at all surprised to find similar results 
for cell phone or broadband services.)

-- 

* * Please support the community that supports you.  * *
http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/

For unsubscribe and other options, including the Tip Harvester 
and archives of thelist go to: http://lists.evolt.org 
Workers of the Web, evolt !