Shira Ovide

President Biden is inheriting tricky tech questions including how to rein in powerful digital superstars, what to do about Chinese technology and how to bring more Americans online. Here’s a glimpse at opportunities and challenges in technology policy for the new Biden administration:

Small-scale internet projects are far from perfect. They can struggle for lack of money, technology problems, or failures to get residents involved. But some people who are pushing for better and more fair online access in the United States say that small-scale internet networks, in combination with savvier government funding and policies, are part of the solution to America’s digital divide.

It is helpful to look for the profit motives behind what’s happening in our shopping lives. So why does it feel as if every other commercial you see on TV or online is a phone company blaring “5G! 5G! 5G!” into your earholes? Because each once-in-a-decade changeover in wireless technology is a shot for companies like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile to pad our cellphone bills without us going nuts and to steal customers from one another.

Apjit Walia, the global head of technology strategy at Deutsche Bank, has a free market suggestion for ending the digital divide: Big technology companies should pay for millions of lower-income Americans to get what they need to go online. And not out of the goodness of their heart. In Walia’s view, it would be a smart business decision to reach new customers and repair Big Tech’s reputation.

Technology is part of the tug of war between the United States and China. But let me offer some advice: When you hear an American technology executive mention China, put on your hmmmm face. Ditto when you hear a US government official talk about China in the context of technology. US tech companies love to suggest that anything that hurts them somehow opens the door to China’s technology dominance.

Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big American tech companies collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year on things like massive warehouses of computer and internet equipment that let them speed along your Instagram posts and home shopping purchases. You might have driven by some of these computing centers and never noticed them. But the tech giants’ efforts to make these boring workhorses more efficient and effective is one of the most important advancements in technology in the last decade.

A Q&A with New York Times technology reporter Cecilia Kang. 

Susan Crawford, a Harvard Law School professor, says the root of the digital divide is that big companies like AT&T and Comcast both control the internet pipelines and charge us to gain access to them. They don’t have an incentive to build affordable internet everywhere.

[Commentary] No matter what the Federal Communications Commission does, America's internet is not an equal place and it's only going to become less fair. The reality is big companies do have a privileged path into people's digital lives. They have the money and the technical ability to make sure their websites and internet videos speed through internet pipes without delays or hiccups. Web services from big companies such as Netflix and Google account for the majority of internet use during peak evening hours in North America. And even though Google doesn't need to pay AT&T or Verizon Co

The US (and the world) is in the midst of a sea change in how we spend our leisure time. Young people are less inclined to indulge in America's favorite pastime: zoning out in front of the TV. On average, people ages 18 to 24 spend half as much time watching live and recorded television as 35-to-49-year-old Americans, according to Nielsen.Young people are definitely watching video, but it's more likely something from YouTube or a friend's Snapchat story on their phone than the episode of "Grey's Anatomy" their parents are watching on the living room TV.

As TV changes accelerate, though, not enough people in the technology and entertainment industries are talking about a crucial issue: Can America’s expensive and inferior home and mobile internet networks handle it as more people shift from watching TV to having their entertainment delivered over the web? Even now, many home internet networks can't manage. Media and tech consulting firm Activate estimated only 12 percent of US households have fast enough internet speed to support multiple people watching TV online via services such as Sling TV. About 34 million Americans -- 10 percent of the population, and 39 percent in rural parts of the country -- have no access to fast home internet, according to an analysis by the Federal Communications Commissions.