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We published our @A4A_Internet report on device prices earlier this month. These little bricks that sit in our hands didn't exist twenty years ago and yet now are life-essential for billions of people. https://a4ai.org/research/from-luxury-to-lifeline-reducing-the-cost-of-mobile-devices-to-reach-universal-internet-access/
Some personal reflections, in a thread
We published our @A4A_Internet report on device prices earlier this month. These little bricks that sit in our hands didn't exist twenty years ago and yet now are life-essential for billions of people. https://a4ai.org/research/from-luxury-to-lifeline-reducing-the-cost-of-mobile-devices-to-reach-universal-internet-access/Some personal reflections, in a thread
I got my first smartphone, a HTC Nexus 1, ca. 2010 when I became a public face for @StANightline and had a number of new volunteer coordination responsibilities. I couldn't have done this role without the newfound power of the internet in my hands, on the go.
It transformed my life. Today, my smartphone (still an Android, now a Pixel) is probably my most-used tool, next to the glasses that sit on my face. My professional and social life survive and thrive through this 5.5in screen.
It's also great for vacation selfies.
It's also great for vacation selfies.
And that's part of the magic of these bricks. Smartphones do everything: the small, the big, the personal, the public. Looking at 1900 era animations of life "in the year 2000" (En L'An 2000), you see one hundred years' foreshadowing of these devices. They 
do it all.
do it all.
That's why confronting the cost barrier of these devices is so crucial. 2.5 billion people live in countries where the cheapest new smartphone is more expensive as a fraction of income than what a European like me is spending on housing and utilities.
No wonder that the digital divide is so stubborn. The initial cost to connect – the device, the data, the electricity, and the time cost of learning how it all works – is so high. There's a number of things policymakers and others can do to help.
Reducing taxes on low-cost devices to encourage more retailers to sell these devices, especially operators and other big brands that help consumers navigate the market.
Use Universal Service & Access Funds to subsidise devices for those least able to buy them.
Support projects that help people spread the cost of devices, give people access to credit and other financial tools instead of full cost, up front for a device.This is probably the hardest knot to untangle but also has some of the greatest potential to help.
Also worth noting that this is one of (if not *the*) first publicly-available datasets that tracks smartphone prices in a machine-readable format. I'm proud of @A4A_Internet's commitment for our research help more people understand, analyse, and campaign for device affordability.
I hope this report gets us a step closer to achieving it all. More selfies, more video chats, more knowledge – made available to more people. Let's go
