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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  3147 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Daydreams of leaving

Dude. The ENTIRE WORLD has better internet than the shit we have here in the USA. I mean, I moved back to the US over a DECADE ago, and I still don't have the cell phone quality or signal that I had in eastern fucking europe just after the Soviet Union fell.

Seriously. You go overseas and you will be PISSED at how shitty the IT infrastructure is in the US.





user-inactivated  ·  3146 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can't stop marvelling at how much better Russian Internet access is overall: speed, cost, choice of providers (each with their own thing, many details shared among various brands), free Wi-Fi at places... The country that invented the Internet not being able to do good by their people is astounding.

goobster  ·  3145 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, when you look at how capitalism works in this country, it makes sense that everything we do would suck. Because people get rewarded for cutting corners, and they make more money. They they use that money to fortify their position with lobbying and government contracts. And then they stop innovating because they have a nice, cushy defensible position.

It's humiliating when one of my European friends come to visit. They pop open their phone and try to find a wifi signal... but they can't. Because the city doesn't provide wifi. So we go to a Starbucks. But they are in bed with ATT, or whoever, so you have to have an account and pay for their internet. And meanwhile the dude has been trying to check one thing in one app for, like, 45 minutes, but we can't get a reliable wifi signal anywhere...

It's like I want to just go find a FAX machine and tell them to send a fax instead....

So embarrassing.