I am a subscriber to the internet for many years, who up to date must have paid thousands of euros due to monthly payments. Now I am still paying €30.00 monthly to be able to speak with friends, people in my missions of a couple of 3rd World countries, my family in Canada and TV programmes.

When I was working I had to pay to cross the Fliegu, now that I have a + on my 60, it is a free ride, I can go to Museums for free, can get a helper and even a carer for a discount, maintenance person to fix-it in my house for free, because I am an elderly. I get my medicine for free, get my nails cut and so much more! And because this is so, then it must be because it is proper and just.

So I ask, why do we have to pay 3.8% of our pension to have the commodity of a WIFI? Shouldn’t it be subsidised or free? Didn’t we contribute enough when these servers came in the market? Weren’t we the subscribers who built your companies? Now we cant afford as much as when we used to work. And another thing.

ONE HAS TO BE OLD to appreciate time! When I talk to people I find it so hard to explain to them that time go 10 times faster when you are retired then when you are young. I appreciate that I might live 10 to 20 years more but I also know that 10 years are like 10, months for me now. When I go to pay the licence plate I cannot believe that a year already passed by.

When I watch TV I want to watch documentaries, good news and good movies. I do not waste my time with local politics. I do not have to be impressed with slander or praise of both parties. I am intelligent enough to assess to whom I will vote when it is my duty to do so. I do not have time to waste assessing what is going on in parliament. I know what the government is doing and what he has done when things were tough.

But I can value the time I have left to live by just reading the headlines. I have that choice. But what about the time which is robbed from me by adds on Youtube? At the beginning they were seconds short and one can click them off. Now they can go on for 50 or more seconds and if you are not quick enough to skip it it will start another count in grey but again some of them you have to go through the whole time.

This is purely an invasion in my house. And who is going to pay for new batteries or new remotes for the times my arthritis hands drop it? Who is going to take me for confession to tell the priest how many times I swore at the hamburger adds! How dare you waste my little precious time I have left, time which I care for, time which is valuable to me. What good are adds for me to buy a new car at my age, or change my kitchen or buy a new house, or buy makeup?

I have made a list of products that I will never use or buy from, I will rather pay for a regular, more expensive taxi than those new cheaper ones whom I calculate, I was forced to watch their stupid adds for a whole fortnight in two years time. I cannot afford to block them and I do not know how to hack it.

On my mobile I find myself reading scientific articles which I subscribed in. Lately when a certain add of a soft drink comes up with two knights fighting on the ground, I just exit and I do not even read the article not to watch the add. I used to drink this soft drink since I was a toddler, but I swapped it recently in anger against their add and am buying a drink who never puts adds at least on my TV or phone.

The longer the add is the more I ban it, the same with restaurants.

Can’t the servers of internet do a survey and see how many 60 to 75 year old users there are and if they would find a way to serve us free WIFI at least to those who live on a small pension and are alone.

And can our WIFI also be free from adds so that we can live the little time we graciously have in peace and tranquillity.

What good are the survey if they do not make the world a better place?

Anthony Zammit,

Gozo.

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