Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

That's a fascinating experiment. I just tried 30 days without the internet (at home). But I still used it in cafes, whereas Paul is disconnecting completely.

I think he's going to find many little points of friction that he wasn't expecting. So many non-internet exchanges now end with "sure, send me an email" or "Sure, just go to our website and..." The infrastructure to serve non-web users still exists, but it's fading.

I personally decided to go back to the internet. I'm doing an online course with Udacity; cafe bandwidth didn't cut it.

If I were just doing writing, I actually would go without a home internet connection. It's a much more productive system if your work doesn't require access. But my work now does, and there was too much friction.

If I were doing technology writing, like Paul...well, I'd love to know how this turns out.

For many things (In the UK at least) there is still a non Internet infrastructure for interfacing with things like Government departments and banks.

But many other times there simply is not, I remember a few years ago (maybe around 2007) job hunting and asking for an application form and being told that all applications had to be made online.

Also for some of the systems I have developed we have ended up using email address as a uniquely identifying piece of information for each customer which basically means that it is a mandatory field whenever a record in the DB is created and I would guess many others have done so too.

Maybe some day we'll have public phone-to-Internet relays where you call an operator and tell them to navigate a website and read it back to you, like the text-to-phone relays the deaf use.

I like this idea. However, one must take into account the cost of having a human-operator read back a website to you.

Maybe as synthesized speech improves you could have a viable service like this using computer programs as the operator.

It'd be one way to cut back on your Internet addiction. You'll certainly reevaluate the worth of online discussions when you have to actually listen to them play out while you sit there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com