Today, nearly every resident of a developed country – and soon most of the rest of the world – can easily afford a smartphone, thereby gaining inexpensive access to a universe of human knowledge and entertainment that, until a generation ago, was far beyond the reach of all but the rich. Is it possible that conventional measures of inequality and income vastly underestimate just how good we have it?
如今，几乎所有发达国家的居民&mdash;&mdash;大部分世界其他部分的人很快也会加入其中&mdash;&mdash;可以轻松购买智能手机，从而以十分低廉的代价获得人类知识和娱乐的全部，而在一代人之前，这还仅仅是富人的特权。是否有这样的可能，传统不平等性和收入衡量手段大大低估了我们现在的境况？