When I went there with Matthew in maybe ... 2014 about a week before the travel ban was formally lifted, we noticed people huddled around at night on their phones, faces all aglow at various (what I assumed to be then) hotspots. Struggling, no doubt, to eat up whatever data and connection with the world they could manage.
It's surreal to think of how things may change if the wide world can be known to them more fully .... but then, maybe it won't change THAT much. We tend, I think, to overestimate the way that systems can move and adjust and change .... and how much change can be affected.
Great points, as always :) Yeah, it was very interesting to see the change from 2016 (very similar to your "faces all aglow public hotspot" experience) and 2023, where there was much less need for it
Interesting.
When I went there with Matthew in maybe ... 2014 about a week before the travel ban was formally lifted, we noticed people huddled around at night on their phones, faces all aglow at various (what I assumed to be then) hotspots. Struggling, no doubt, to eat up whatever data and connection with the world they could manage.
It's surreal to think of how things may change if the wide world can be known to them more fully .... but then, maybe it won't change THAT much. We tend, I think, to overestimate the way that systems can move and adjust and change .... and how much change can be affected.
Great points, as always :) Yeah, it was very interesting to see the change from 2016 (very similar to your "faces all aglow public hotspot" experience) and 2023, where there was much less need for it