[ga] Digital Divide

[Hugh Dierker <hdierker2204@xxxxxxxxx>]

So there I was driving my seven year old car back home from taking my bride to work on one of the busiest freeways in the world and my cell calls me and some voice tells me to check some transaction when I get home. Well the transaction got eschewed when some institution changed routing numbers and did not tell their customers. So I hop on the computer and some sbcyahoo thingy had ten minutes worth of upgrades today and then windows got obnoxious and updated something else. I called the sending institution meanwhile and pressed 8 buttons in their new system that finally recognized me, an old customer, after new passwords and a hometown instead of a mothers maiden name. Then I got to the first of the websites, which had been upgraded - but low and behold the new programmer techie types only beta tested for brand new browsers.  As a hold over from my days writing text for websites I quickly called my library, (where my librarian told me I was scheduled for ESL seminars next we!
ek so I
 go to that site and it is upgraded with new browser only access) and internet cafe', fed-express-kinkos (where my gaming buddy tells me to upload quickly because his new game that will pulverize me is ready)  and a city college (where my friendly pool secretary reminds me that even adjunct/parttime professors have to register for classes online and without new browsers it is innaccessable and student affairs is pissed) for time on their computers. I jumped in my car and ran around to four public internet locations and none of them could access these new hot sites with the "old" browers they were using.
Well I do not know if all of the access problems were browser related. Maybe that is just what the public access people say with new websites. But I do know that big institutions with beautiful sites that rely on them for commerce, registrations and security were out of touch with users and that it hurt them and consumers. I am sure no one intended on alienating folks. But it struck me how little impact ICANN really has on the nuts and bolts of everyday useage, and that regulations and contracts do not make the system work. It also hit me that technology is great and cutting edge is great but somewhere somehow corporations eliminated the middle management that makes sure it interfaces with users.
 
Eric

		
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