There is a fundamental friction involved in building community networks and municipal fibre type networks to provide an 'equality of access' to the internet for all people. On the one had, they allow people to look for jobs, access information, use maps, pay bills etc, and on the other, each new network is widening the customer base for retailers and the data generation potential for advertisers. 

It's clear that if you don't have ready access you're at a disadvantage, if only in that doing things takes more time and effort. The job search/application process is a good example. You need respond to ads quickly, have the time to write application letters and follow-up via email.

But at what point does internet access turn from public utility that enables you to do life stuff (file taxes, pay bills, make written contact with people and organisations) efficiently, into a medium by which companies can use you as a potential customer, a source of information to extract and examine behaviour patterns?

In 2017, these things are so intertwined that it seems you can't have one thing without the other. But this is not new. Governments and companies have been doing this since the invention of censuses, electoral rolls, tax file/social security numbers, and even the use of surnames (e.g. western european jews didn't traditionally use surnames until it was legislated [in which country i forget] in the early 1800s).

So, I don't know; is it a responsible thing to be trying to help get poor or remote or non-technologically-developed communities online? On the one hand, I definitely don't want such an exercise to be led Facebook's Free Basics' walled garden version of internet connectivity. Perhaps it is imperative that communities are able to organise and control their own access to the internet if only to beat Google, Facebook and other data exploitationist companies (or telco monopolies like Time Warner) to the punch?

I still feel slightly queasy about some of the optimism surrounding connecting the remainder of the world's population to the internet, but i suppose if you look at it as being an inevitability (and --is it?), then it becomes important that users are able to make this connection on as many of their own terms as they realistically have control over. I also think in the municipal fiber and community mesh scenarios, creating locally-focused utility can be both an attractor of users and an opposition to big company control - opportunities for local companies to trade and for social interactions to occur outside of the umbrella of amazon or facebook.

Let's remember - network connectivity does not equal 'internet' connectivity - your home router is in fact capable of much more than simply sucking down content from major platforms. To date there is a lot of enthusiasm towards non-internet locally centric applications, especially as wireless infrastructure has become cheap, but such usage has yet to catch on in a widespread way. It is entirely possible that remaining small, short-lived, radical, rogue and esoteric is the best way for such community networks to have impact, however. Some of the most notable local DIY/ad-hoc networks have revolved around protest movements.

In any case, I'm always mulling over this topic, and looking on with keen interest at what others are doing in this space. This is why I started CTRLYROWN, and I look forward to starting some cool new things through it in 2018.