“Lies, damn lies and statistics,” Samuel Clemens once quipped. As always, assumptions matter, when assessing internet usage or anything else.
Perhaps 15 percent of Americans do not use the Internet at home, some argue. Two explanations always are advanced: people do not want to use the internet, or the price is too high.
A recent survey by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration shows 58 percent of non-users say they do not use the internet because they are not interested. That same survey had 21 percent of non-users saying they did not use the internet because it was too expensive.
A report published by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance argues the price of service “is the principal reason people do not subscribe to broadband.”
Some say the results are skewed because the surveys relied upon in the NDIA Report “no longer permit respondents to indicate a lack of interest as the reason for not using the Internet at home, despite this reason being the most frequent response provided in earlier editions of these same surveys,” says a new analysis by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Policy Studies.
“A more thorough analysis of the surveys relied upon by the NDIA Report reveals that non-price factors dominate price as the determining factor for not using the Internet at home,” the Phoenix Center says. Measures of price sensitivity, on the other hand, would be useful for informing policy, they argue.
That is simply a matter of logic. If a respondent says a product is too expensive, then it should certainly matter what price would prompt a purchase. If a respondent says “I do not need that product,” no price drop is likely to lead to purchase and usage.
Indeed, that conclusion is what the NTIA finds. Of the reported non-users, more than half say they would buy at a lower price. Only eight percent of those reporting “no need or interest” would consider buying at a lower price.
Including all U.S. residents, including those as young as three years old, somewhere between 72 percent and 80 percent of all residents use the internet, presumably including any usage, on any device, on any network, at home or at work, the NTIA also notes.
That might strike you as a low figure, since for most of us, everyone one knows uses the internet.
The point, as always, is that assumptions always matter.
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