This split goes back to the core difference between entertainment and education. When people in the focus groups spoke about new technologies and controlling cost, the examples they gave were in entertainment. Movies on demand and home shopping are not things everyone needs to have access to, so people did not feel it necessary to control costs. Most important, people have a general ideological view that the market should control private enterprise and that communications technologies are still part of private enterprise. They feel differently when technology moves to the necessities or actions already within the public arena-education, for example.
Education is one necessity that is viewed as already being within the realm of government.
It is a critical issue, according to focus group participants-key to their children's future and to the economy. Furthermore, people perceive a gap in education now that they feel to be a result of income. Technology has the potential to close or widen this gap, and people are sensitive to that. So, paying for services is the key debate among policymakers as well as the public. People do not want to pay now for services they may or may not see at some point in the future.