Sky-Fi

EVER since the early 1990s, when it moved out of universities and was embraced by the general public, the internet has grown relentlessly. Only 2% of the world's population was online in 1997. By 2014 the proportion had risen to 39%, or about 3 billion people (see chart below). But that still leaves another 4 billion who live an internet-free existence. Most of the bereft are in the developing world, where only 32% of people are online, compared with 78% in rich countries. And those numbers disg...