The Strangest Facts About the Internet

Written By Alex Koyfman

Posted December 31, 2015

No invention in the history of mankind (except for the alphabet itself) has had the same degree of intellectual, cultural, social, and economic impact as the Internet.

It’s so universal these days that it’s almost easy to forget it’s there… As the case is with air itself, we only tend to get emotional when something happens and the Internet winds up out of reach.

So when people (especially those old enough to remember when Back to the Future was still in movie theaters) periodically comment on how we should have had flying cars by now, I remind them that we do have the ability to take a high-definition picture or video and, within seconds, make it accessible to billions of people worldwide.

Flying cars are cool and might get us from point A to point B faster, but with today’s wireless Internet, the ability to shrink distances between people and share information is nothing short of an evolutionary leap for mankind.

Here are just a few interesting facts to illustrate how Internet has made the transfer of information more fluid:

  • As of 2014, there are 2.4 billion people and 8.7 billion devices online.
  • All of those devices and the servers connecting them require 50 million horsepower of electricity.
  • Every 60 seconds, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
  • In the U.S., one in five couples getting married today met online.
  • According to Google, the Internet today contains about 8 billion terabytes of data — or about 18 million times the amount of information stored at the world’s largest library, the Library of Congress.
  • This information is spread across more than 630 million web pages.
  • Most of which are all accessible via 4G-quality wireless connection, even at the top of Mt. Everest, the highest point on Earth.

And the speed of its spread is a marvel all its own. The Internet took four years to reach its first 50 million users, while television took 13 years and radio took almost 40.

It took two decades to reach 2 billion, and today it is within physical reach of even the most remote villages in the deepest rainforests.

Put all of this together, and the total effect on humanity is hard to measure.

But perhaps the greatest effect is the one we feel each and every day.

Whether it’s finding the answer to a trivia question, finding the location of a restaurant, or finding somebody to talk to, the Internet has changed the way we live our lives to the point where many of us have trouble imagining what life was like without it.

Where is Everyone Else?

And yet, as impressive as these numbers and the concepts they represent may be, there is a glaring inconsistency hidden within them.

Of the 7.2 billion people on Earth today, more than 60% still lack Internet access of any kind.

And the reason why might surprise you — it’s not a matter of coverage.

Remember, there has been 4G coverage at the top of the world’s tallest mountain since 2013, just as there is over more than 93% of the world’s total surface.

The problem isn’t access to the Internet; the problem is access to the devices necessary to access the Internet.

And that problem has everything to do with money.

Take India and China, for example — the world’s two most populous nations, with more than 2.6 billion people between them.

And yet the average wage for workers in both countries is between $80 and $90 per week.

Does it sound reasonable that somebody making that much money would be able to afford a device similar to that one you have in your pocket?

Or pay the same amount you pay for that cell service or for the home wireless connection that keeps your laptops and tablets online 24/7?

Probably not. Not even the bargain-basement providers that do business in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East can bring service to the poorest of those regions.

And if the service was hard to stomach, the cost of the hardware itself is simply a deal breaker.

Well, that was the case, anyway.

Remember This Thing?

In 1983, this wasn’t as silly as it looks today. It was a status symbol no less in your face than a Rolls Royce or a big sparkling Rolex.

earlycell

That didn’t last long, though.

The cell phone went from being a $9,000 novelty that was out of the reach of anybody outside of the realm of Gordon Gekko to the fastest-spreading piece of consumer electronics ever invented in two decades.

Today, as we sit on an absurd over-abundance of wireless devices (there are more today than there are people on Earth), the next step is clear:

It’s time for a super-cheap wireless device to open this ultimate public domain to the other 60% of humanity…

And it’s already happening.

A True Internet of the Masses

Right now, there is a company producing full-sized, wireless-capable tablets — not too far off from an early-generation iPad in terms of resolution and capabilities — and selling them for just $40.

That’s about 90% less than the cost of Apple’s iconic tablet.

Moreover, the device comes bundled with the world’s cheapest Internet service, amounting to right around $0.50 per month.

Think about that the next time you pay your Comcast bill.

At these prices, hundreds of millions and perhaps even billions of new customers across the developing world will be in reach for the first time.

The patterns for this development, by the way, aren’t just speculation on my part. They’ve been established over the course of years, with Asia, India included, in the lead in terms of new users.

internetusechart

The long-term effects of bringing a catalyst like this into developing societies is as hard to predict as was the speed of the Internet’s adoption in the developed world 20 years ago.

Economies will be stimulated; free thought and science will spread; interpersonal relationships that would have otherwise never existed will be created.

What’s clear is that the first step into this market has already been taken, and the company doing it isn’t what you might expect.

This is How Legends are Made

It’s small, and it’s Canadian. Production is in India, but so are the sales.

This hyper-cheap wireless Internet solution has a target market estimated at close to 900 million, or about 70% of India’s total population.

The product is proven, and it’s selling — with more than half a million units moved in the two preceding quarters.

In an almost limitless prospective market, this company, even after five consecutive record-setting quarters, is still trading at under $50 million total market capitalization.

It sounded strange to me, too, so I did some deeper digging… and what I found out was pretty amazing.

This company is sitting on potential that’s easily into the tens of billions and likely beyond.

And 2016 looks like the year when critical density will finally be achieved in terms of profitability.

Fortune favors the bold,

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Alex Koyfman

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His flagship service, Microcap Insider, provides market-beating insights into some of the fastest moving, highest profit-potential companies available for public trading on the U.S. and Canadian exchanges. With more than 5 years of track record to back it up, Microcap Insider is the choice for the growth-minded investor. Alex contributes his thoughts and insights regularly to Energy and Capital. To learn more about Alex, click here.

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