A farmer who strives for self-sustainability will not need Internet access for comfortable life. But a poor person living in a city - trying to escape poverty by getting closer with society, not further from it - might find it pretty useful. Such people often spend big amounts of time dealing with government institutions, trying to enroll and stay enrolled in the local welfare and jobs programmes - in some countries having Internet access can significantly speed up&#x2F;streamline this process.<p>In general, a lot of extremely poor people in urban areas suffer more from the lack of predictable time slots than lack of money. When doing multiple temporary jobs with flexible hours, adjusted at a moment&#x27;s notice, you can&#x27;t really plan anything ahead. You barely have enough time to do groceries, let alone pick a shop that has a given item cheaper, and forget about any service that requires an appointment. Internet access solves a lot of these issues by allowing you to do things a) at random hours, and b) without having to physicly go somewhere.<p>Also on-line ordering usually gives you cheaper everything; hell, even groceries may be worth getting delivered if it frees up a time slot during the day that could be better spent taking care of something else, or even playing with one&#x27;s kid.<p>Then there are things like Craigslist and other benefits of instant, pretty much free long-distance communication.  One could list on and on. But the main point is - in all but the few least developed countries, Internet access can give <i>huge</i> quality of life improvements to the poor.