Mirko makes a few points. The internet can be overused, but the very same comments were probably made about television when it was first introduced. People were turning into couch potatoes; kids were doing nothinhg but watching TV and not getting out with their friends. More tech angst is not going to solve much.
I sympathise with Mirko in tilting against this particular windmill. I use to have a thing about mobile phones being pointles, now I carry one everywhere.
In any case, the Internet has become indispensible in business. Its now part of the fabric of commercial life. Mirko should find himself another windmills to tilt against..

Of course there is a down-side to any innovation. Do we ban cars and aeroplanes because millions have been killed by them ?

There is an up-side as well and even in a small way as an individual the computer and the internet saves me money, even after I have paid my ISP.
I can do my banking, no cheques in the mail. I can talk to people on line with a video for nothing. I can do research, make reservations at the library, check out the surf, look for the cheapest buy, receive and send documents,make my own cards, listen to music and the radio, watch and record TV, keep records such as budgets and print them out with analysis, download my digital photos and send them to others (you can do this by phone but it costs money) Digitise my old vinyl records, download movies and video clips, and even express an opinion by publication !

These are a few of the personal advantages I get off the top of my head. Just think of the things that industry are able to do especially in the medical field with diagnostics and records.

It's a marvelous tool for education and I am constantly reading educational stuff that was never available before the internet. There is virtually nothing that can't be found on it, one just has to be discerning that's all

no question the NBN is an expensive project but lets get a few points straight.

If the government don't build it, the country won't get it. And for all those who seem to think those country bumpkins wouldn't understand it never mind use it i would like to get very abusive of your ignorance.

Optic fibre cable will not out date or become a technology backwater. The only changes will be the equipment you plug into it. The cable has ability and capacity that far exceeds any future dreams.

I laugh at all the people that knock the ALP for trying to take on a major infrastructure project that has endless potential particularly in ecommerce and special areas like rural health and aboriginal health. Of course conservatives would never risk doing anything for the future as they couldn't sell that at the next election for cheap votes, like baby bonuses and family tax benefit bonuses. All vote buying. Not to worry the Lib's will sell it off to make themselves look like great financial managers and claim credit for the success of the system.

The NBN will be a hugh winner for all the country rural and urban, it will generate income and that will dictate how long it is kept for. when considering the decentralisation of population and business we still need much more spending on infrastructure to make it happen. Again if the government don't do it the rural areas won't get it and to be honest the massive suburbs of western sydney and melbourne carry far to much influence over government decisions because the have so many seats and are so easily influenced by their own greed and small minds.

The author is obviously unaware just how much our world has been changed by the internet. Ever heard of the "digital economy"?
Would you say that instant phone communication is "luxury" or "necessity"? Have you ever lived out of a city?
Most water cooler chat is football, sex and office politics but that doesn't mean face to face communication is useless!
National infrastructure is built by folks with vision, and derided by those who look backward.
These people seem to accept handouts to corporations and those with wealth, yet deride any attempt to actually build something without some "entrepreneur" making millions from it.
Do these folks realise how much wealth has been wasted via the inept privatisation of Telstra? (The Billions in waste and monopolistic behaviour, the consultants, the US posse of inept senior management.)
Bringing up abusers behaviour as examples of the "value" of the internet is disingenuous at best. Do we value supermarkets by the number of obese folks buying bulk Coke?
Internet socially isolating. What a crock! Social folks can no socialise with people from around the world. Studies have shown that more communication is taking place. Focusing on the extremely un-social members of society does not make for an accurate picture.
This article reads as a thinly disguised anti-Labour piece: Someone arguing "the internet is a luxury" in this day and age is not that credible!

Well said.
HP

diver dan. Are not there plans for alternative methods in the situation you describe? I was under the impression, where fibre was not suitable, wireless and satellite would be used. At least that is what I thought I read. The promise is for fibre to 90+percentage of the population