The Net, ten years ago

Internet access is available anywhere these days — even on tropical islands in south-east Asia. Several weeks ago, I was on the island of Ko Tao in southern Thailand. Myself and several of my mates were discussing our views on the price of Internet usage. Most of us were in agreement that the standard Ko Tao rate of 2 baht per minute (about AUD$5 per hour) — which was standard across all of the island's many cafés — was exhorbitant, unacceptable and unjustifiable. One bloke, however, had visited the island ten years previously. He thought that the rate was completely fair — as he remembered that ten years earlier, the entire island had boasted only a single place offering access; and that back then, they were charging 60B/min! Nowadays, the standard rate in most parts of Thailand is about ½B/min, or even ¼B/min if you know where to look. This massive price difference got me thinking about what else regarding the 'Net has changed between 1998 and 2008. And the answer is: heck, what hasn't?

After my recent series of blog posts discussing serious environmental issues, I figured it's time to take a break, and to provide a light interlude that makes you laugh instead of furrow your eyebrows. So let me take you on a trip down memory lane, and pay a tribute to those golden days when text was ASCII, and download speeds were one digit.

What it was like...

What it's still like

Post a comment