General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "I live on $710.00 a month, what exactly am I supposed to cut?" [View all]avebury
(11,197 posts)Oklahoma City didn't get even an inch of snow this year. We are just off of a bad drought so rain wasn't an issue. If I happened to live within a 10 minute walk to the library why or earth would I want to waste my money on internet? Besides, I could take advantage of the libraries AC during the 100+ degree weather and keep the temperature of my house warmer - thereby saving on my electrical bill. A lot of my work is done online, either on the intranet or internet. I can do personal perusing before work and at lunch time.
As to the mall, if there is free wi-fi you can just park yourself in the food court. People aren't going to pay attention to you. Same for a book store. If I am going to surf the internet away from home it will not be an all day activity but for a set amount of time. And for you poo-pooing the idea of hanging at the mall, a local mall here has one parking garage that is the place to go when a bad hail storm hits the area. Having a laptop allows you to track the weather while you wait out the storm inside the mall. One time, the weather was so bad the Mall actually brought out a TV into the foyer by JC Penney and was tuned to one of the local TV Channels for storm weather coverage.
If the internet is that essential to you then by all means have it at your home. However, if someone is on an extremely limited budget, that budget is only going to go so far. Food, shelter, medical care, and clothing has to come first. This country does not provide free internet service (in fact there will probably be a move at some point to charge people according to volume usage) and that is a fact of life. If you cannot afford it then you need to be creative about how you get it.