Is There a Ceiling on Internet Users?

There is no silver bullet to the complex economic, cultural, technical and policy barriers to bringing more of the world’s citizens online. Advocates of expanding internet use say that being connected is an economic engine and increasingly a necessity of modern life. An internet connection is also a minimum condition for internet companies to reach potential customers. Ana Maria Rodriguez, a research analyst with the advocacy group the Alliance for Affordable Internet, said that official figures of online users might drastically underestimate how many people don’t have regular access to the internet, can’t afford to go online often, have poor service or some combination thereof. She said that the World Bank and UN counted an internet user as anyone who had gone online at least once in the past three months. By their figures, two-thirds of people in Colombia were online as of 2019. But research from the Alliance for Affordable Internet found that only one-quarter of Colombians had “meaningful” access, which included consistent online connections at relatively quick speeds. Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other tech companies and executives have various projects to help expand internet access or tailor their apps for countries where millions of people may be going online for the first time. Rodriguez, whose group receives funding from tech companies, said that doing even more could help billions of people — and corporations’ bottom lines. “It’s in their interest to reach these people,” Rodriguez told me, referring to the global internet companies.

[Shira Ovide writes the On Tech newsletter for the New York Times.]