You can work as a factory worker and still require internet access for scheduling days off, getting payroll information, etc. In fact, it's likely that people not working desk jobs are those most in need of home internet access, as they might not be provided such at work.
People like that could get by with dial up if people like the ones reading this comment would stop loading 80MB of JS just so they can save a couple lines of code.
Edit: The dailup part was an exaggeration but if your web app doesn't suck 3g and two bars or a 1Mb down DSL pipe should be fine for most CRUD type business tasks that. There's no reason that signing in and signing up for a shift should take more bandwidth than Craigslist.
The employee has absolutely no control over that and sure, you could pass regulations - but those regulations are going to be fairly difficult to enforce.
But you know, we could just start trying to make sure everyone has decent internet. Work isn't the only benefits to this.
Ask me how I know you haven't used dialup recently. First, you can't even get dialup in many places because the pots system has been ripped out and replaced by partial fiber.
Second of all, Once you add a phone line and pay for dialup you're looking at a cheap broadband cost.
I'll preface this with noting it's a little odd to act as though adding 80 MB of unnecessary JS is a popular idea on HN.
They couldn't if they needed to work asynchronously. Or if they couldn't speak or hear well over the phone, the likelihood of which approaches 1 if you have so much as a different accent. Or if you don't want the other person to hear your accent.
It's a bit cliche maybe, but I know people who've benefited from all of those features of IP-based communication, and they're reasons to be happy about the Internet. And since just about any telecommunications system that transmits voice can be bullied into transmitting IP packets, there's really little cost.
I mean, we can all agree, I imagine, that many pages have too much JS. But then what do we cut? My idea of what's "useless" is probably different than the people cutting my checks. Saying pages don't need "unnecessary" JS is tautological but not really illuminating. I do think there is plenty of reason lots of people would benefit in their work from single-page applications, not to mention video and audio that would dwarf the JS anyways.
My point is that the kinds of CRUD and spreadsheet manipulation tasks that most people who don't work at a screen all day need to do on a screen can be done over a trivially tiny pipe if that pipe is used with at least a token amount of efficiency.
Everything is more important than that... until it's not. People don't know what they really care about until their assumptions are unchecked. When nobody HAS to use their phone for certain online actions, those actions likely won't be optimized for mobile, and people will care much more about popup tooltips, navigation, color scheme, logos and branding, extra random reporting, etc. Once people are forced to use mobile and it's not a couple minute experience once every week or month, then page load speed (and initial page payload size for SPA) become very important to those people.
Assuming I did bring in an 80mb js library into a web app wouldn't there be something in the build process that removes unreachable code? I mostly have backend and mobile experience with only a little frontend experience. But I agree many modern pages are way larger then they really need to be.
IMO most websites are products, and possibly irrational too. Whether or not to prioritize a poor customer is more of a business judgment than an engineering one.
And if we’re talking mobile, wouldn’t an app experience be the best?
How are they monopolies? Competition is allowed. They choose to not compete in markets, either by not entering the market or buying up competitors. America used to have a stronger take on competition law, but for decades it's considered anti-business government regulation.
Google Fiber only launched in a handful of cities where the local bureaucracy had committed to bypassing many longstanding procedural barriers. They found laying new cables to be all but impossible everywhere else.
Do you think consistent campaign contributions to both parties, relentless industry lobbying and this all being perfectly legal may have something to do with it as well?
So did factories not exist prior to the internet? How on earth did people get paid, coordinate shift changes, or ask their boss for time off back in the 1950s?
I think the reaction from GP was likely due to a difference in how people interpret the meaning of the word can't, as in some people mean "I currently use the internet because non-internet solutions are inconvenient" vs "It's literally impossible to do my job without the internet or losing the internet would make my job completely irrelevant(such as being a dev on the Google search team)."
I think that even for work from home jobs, if the internet disappeared tomorrow a lot of employers would figure out how to do the important stuff with non-internet solutions, like accepting longer business timelines, couriering paper documents, sending faxes (this might require getting fax machines and landlines for employees, but companies will pay for them if they need to), and having telephone meetings instead of Zoom.
Some employers would probably cut employees/tasks that weren't adding as much value as the effort required to shift to non-internet solutions, but I don't think it would be as high as a literal interpretation of this survey would imply.
Indeed - my dad just happen to retire the same week the eliminated the steno pool since everyone was starting to get computers on their desk (286's with WordPerfect - ah, the days)
> I think the reaction from GP was likely due to a difference in how people interpret the meaning of the word can't, as in some people mean "I currently use the internet because non-internet solutions are inconvenient" vs "It's literally impossible to do my job without the internet or losing the internet would make my job completely irrelevant(such as being a dev on the Google search team)."
This is why I never pay attention to self reported studies. You could argue they are crafted to make the most clickbait headlines while also saying nothing of worth.
What about people working for companies who's policies dictate that certain actions must be done through some internet system (eg time clocks, payroll, scheduling, etc). It might be physically possible to ask someone else to do some of these things for one, but it also might not be allowed. EG if all time off requests including sick days have to be entered in a web scheduling system, then it may not be possible to just do the old "ask the boss for the day off" and have it not be considered an unexcused absence by corporate higher-ups.
If you're a remotely decent employee, your manager will figure out a workaround or help you get an exception to the policy. It's hard to find good help, and if you're fired because of a completely inflexible system where you have to clock in with an internet system, then you weren't really fired for the lack of internet, you were fired because management wanted an excuse to fire you.
For the segment of the workforce that we're taking about, there's no such thing as weekly 1:1's or quarterly skip level meetings (ie I scheduled a meeting with my bosses boss.) "Your manager" is overworked and underpaid, same as you, and has no such luxury, nor any real power. It's just not going to scale if every single one of their direct reports, out of dozens, suddenly needs to sign in by hand because the Internet is down. Kafka isn't relegated to Soviet fairy tales, even top performers get dinged for showing up minutes late. Why do you think the "set your own hours" aspect of being an Uber driver is so compelling? It's not because 100% of middle management are nice happy people who love their jobs.
Be glad you've never had to work somewhere where you're disposable, and your boss is forced to fire you for reasons they don't even believe in,
like being mere minutes late. If your shift starts at 7:30 AM, you have to be there at 7:00 AM to be in line to have punched into the time clock before it turns 7:30. Making it to work in time to stand in line for the time clock before 7:30 isn't good enough.
For most of those functions a smart phone or a local library would suffice. I read "can't do our jobs" as being "literally cannot complete work or perform on-paid-time duties".
The entire public library network is closed out where I'm at (save for curbside pickups).
Another kneejerk thought also suggests that whatever few(?) that are open might take on increased traffic, at odds with distancing guidelines/mandates.
The argument you've parroted is against using your personal phone number for work. That's abusive, because it allows the employer to send you work when you're off the clock.
Using your smartphone to log into your payroll site, or as the internet bridge to the company VPN, is not any different from using a broadband line and a laptop to do the same thing. Those systems shouldn't be able to interrupt you when you're not working, but they might still be accessed through a smartphone in lieu of a desktop or laptop.
Parroting implies blind repeating. I honestly believe my statement though. It's not parroting.
> That's abusive, because it allows the employer to send you work when you're off the clock.
No, it's abusive when doing work functions requires the use of my personal phone. Accessing an employer's VPN should not be done using devices or services that are wholly owned and paid for by me.
Allowing my employer to notify me, while I'm off the clock, of any work that's available or scheduling changes or emergencies definitely falls under personal devices can be used.
But when the employer requires you to use your personal devices and personal internet service to actually do any function of that work then that's where you and I clearly disagree.
> Using your smartphone to log into your payroll site
Payroll sites necessarily must be accessible from outside of the work VPN: payroll sites' reporting ability must be accessible after my employment has been terminated.
> or as the internet bridge to the company VPN
Using someone's personal internet service or phone service is unethical. Employers should pay for the internet bridge to the company VPN and all devices and services necessary to connect to it.
> is not any different from using a broadband line and a laptop to do the same thing
Nope, it isn't. Who owns it though?
> Those systems shouldn't be able to interrupt you when you're not working
Indeed.
> but they might still be accessed through a smartphone in lieu of a desktop or laptop.
This is an overly broad statement. Everywhere I've worked where I'm expected to be reachable by phone offered a stipend to pay for the service. And all of them were respectful of my personal time.
An abusive employer is going to make unreasonable demands of you, regardless of whether you use your personal phone for work.
Sure, but... not everywhere has a local library. Parts of Indiana do not, and if you aren't in the library's tax district, you might have to pay to use the library to get a library card, which allows you to use the computers/internet. To make matters worse, in rural areas libraries might be in the next town over and have short hours. In one city, their summer hours were basically 10-3: During the summer, they closed at 6. They had very limited hours on saturday and were always closed on Sunday. You could, quite literally, work most of the time they were open. And for more fun, they only had limited space for computers. If there was a wait, you only had 30 minutes of time.
You should see the library that serves the Las Vegas Strip. I went there to use the wifi last year. It's in a terrible neighborhood. It's smaller than my bedroom. There are four computers, and according to the librarian on duty, they're occupied from open to closing every day, so if you want to use one you have to line up before it opens.
People who say, "Just use the library" are people who have never tried to just use a library.
