They will have little reason or want to satisfy the consumers occasional desire for information. Public policy must require access providers to give citizens the information necessary to make informed, impartial decisions. Right now society appears to be dividing into the computer literate and illiterate. Obviously this phenomena creates a barrier for children who are growing up in a society that is only going to increase its reliance on computers. There are still relatively few people with the resources to access the information available on-line.
Schools are increasingly aware of the necessity for computer literacy in education.
The majority of these computers have the ability to act as terminals on the existing info-highway. A major investment still needs to be made to bring the hardware and bandwidth necessary to exploit all the resources of the Internet. With the number of computers at schools increasing and major initiatives in many states to put every school on-line, it is reasonable to assume that within the next 10 years the majority of students will have access to the vast information resources which exist and are growing daily. When considering direct democracy it can be seen that there would be a problem in trying to implement it today. The concern of a divided society will be a temporary one.