What an eye-opening article. I fully agree with the fact that the kids become more and more constrained and having a hard time seeking their freedom and independence.
But perhaps not so everywhere in the world... We are in the middle of Europe and specifically moved to a smaller town outside the big city when our kids were born. We live in a kid-rich neighborhood with only quiet side-streets/walkways and amble play opportunities in a 300 m radius around the house. Our kids roamed the neighborhood playgrounds already at a young age with large groups of their friends. And when primary school started (age 6-7), we were told, that it is recommended for the kids to walk without adults to school after the first two months of settling in. Also, being in boyscouts is an amazing experience for the kids. Our little one participated in a first camp at age 6 for a whole week. I am pretty confident they have/had their "forests" to roam.
The older one now games a lot on the computer with a group of friends. The younger one is almost permanently in video calls with friends when not outside the house. Reading about private digital spaces with peer groups makes a lot of sense now...
I admit that our situation is pretty ideal. And it cannot be generalized, not even for our country or even our region. But we did actively seek an environment, where our kids could grow up this way and were incredible lucky to find one.
Would it make you jealous if I tell you, that I get 10 Gbit symmetric fiber here in Switzerland (greater Zurich area) for roughly 80 USD/month with no data cap? And I can use my own router and could even go up to 25 Gbit if I want ;-)
Oh, and did I mention no CGNAT and it comes with a static /48 IPv6 net?
You are talking about init7, and they did have to fight tooth and nail and take it to court to get SwissCom to provide reasonable access to the fiber.
IIRC, Init7 explained that basically the internet wants to be fast, but ISPs want to spend lots of money on special equipment to slow down your internet so that they can sell speed tiers and data caps.
The US is much more captured that Switzerland, of course. Providers in the US get billions of dollars to expand their networks and provide service, and then don't provide the service, and nothing happens.
I'm paying under $40/mo for 10g symmetric here in southern Japan, that's including the extra charge for a public static IPv4 address (standard is a /56 IPv6 and tunneled CGNAT IPv4)
But perhaps not so everywhere in the world... We are in the middle of Europe and specifically moved to a smaller town outside the big city when our kids were born. We live in a kid-rich neighborhood with only quiet side-streets/walkways and amble play opportunities in a 300 m radius around the house. Our kids roamed the neighborhood playgrounds already at a young age with large groups of their friends. And when primary school started (age 6-7), we were told, that it is recommended for the kids to walk without adults to school after the first two months of settling in. Also, being in boyscouts is an amazing experience for the kids. Our little one participated in a first camp at age 6 for a whole week. I am pretty confident they have/had their "forests" to roam. The older one now games a lot on the computer with a group of friends. The younger one is almost permanently in video calls with friends when not outside the house. Reading about private digital spaces with peer groups makes a lot of sense now...
I admit that our situation is pretty ideal. And it cannot be generalized, not even for our country or even our region. But we did actively seek an environment, where our kids could grow up this way and were incredible lucky to find one.