In many places, these same technologies are lifechanging. Here's an "I love technology. I love capitalism. I love technocapitalism" story for you: many 3rd world fishermen lead a close to subsistence existence by catching fish and then having to take it to market. Market conditions at towns A, B, and C vary on a day to day basis. If you pick the wrong town to deliver your catch to, you lose out on earnings and some other town loses out on cheap fish. In the worst case, you may be unable to sell your fish at all, in which case the fish rot while someone else starves.
But now, you have a cell phone.
So you can call ahead to towns A, B, and C and ask them "Hey, what is the going price for fish today?" Then you head to the one that reported the highest price. Problem solved.
This means that you can sell your catch, every day, and never go home to the family empty handed. It also means that no one ever goes to the market and comes home saying "Sorry kids, no fish today."
All because of a little technical doohickey that is practically disposable in the Western world these days.
I should clarify, then, that my statement was specific to getting the internet on my cellphone, not about the cellphone itself. The scenario I specifically cited was how having access to the web from whereever I may be may not have changed my life, but it is an incremental improvement.
I have no doubt about the life changing effect of cellphones. Where I come from, cellphones fulfilled, and exceeded, the promise that landlines failed to meet.
In many places, these same technologies are lifechanging. Here's an "I love technology. I love capitalism. I love technocapitalism" story for you: many 3rd world fishermen lead a close to subsistence existence by catching fish and then having to take it to market. Market conditions at towns A, B, and C vary on a day to day basis. If you pick the wrong town to deliver your catch to, you lose out on earnings and some other town loses out on cheap fish. In the worst case, you may be unable to sell your fish at all, in which case the fish rot while someone else starves.
But now, you have a cell phone.
So you can call ahead to towns A, B, and C and ask them "Hey, what is the going price for fish today?" Then you head to the one that reported the highest price. Problem solved.
This means that you can sell your catch, every day, and never go home to the family empty handed. It also means that no one ever goes to the market and comes home saying "Sorry kids, no fish today."
All because of a little technical doohickey that is practically disposable in the Western world these days.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/qjec.122.3.8...