As you can probably see by the fact that I’m posting this, we’ve got Internet access back. Turns out the cable modem had gone bad. So much for blaming it on the snow.

You don’t really realize just how dependent you are on the Internet until it’s gone for a day. I couldn’t pay my bills, do any online banking, continue personal conversations via e-mail, keep an ear on what’s going on in the world, or research a math problem I’d run into on one of my programs. My main sources of entertainment are Internet based too. Every time I turned around, it seemed that I was tripping over the fact that the Internet wasn’t available.

Sure, there are other ways to do all of those things. I still get my bills by mail, so I could always mail in a payment too. A trip to the bank would let me do any kind of banking I want. I could pick up the phone and call the people I was having conversations with. I could turn on the TV and hear about anything big that happened in the world, and the library would have provided everything I needed to figure out the math problem. The library and TV could solve most of my entertainment needs as well. But Internet access means that I don’t have to make a trip to the library or the bank, or wait several days for my payments to be delivered, or spend a lot of money on long distance calls, or waste half an hour or more in front of the TV for the five minutes worth of news that I want.

The Internet is “merely” a convenience, but it also saves both time and money — something that few mere conveniences can boast.

I’ve long thought that Internet access should be a public utility, like electricity or water. It’s the two-way flow of information and communication, and it’s as vital to the modern way of life as any other utility… even more so for information workers like myself. Now I see why some countries — and the United Nations — are calling Internet access a basic human right.