> The internet hasn’t been the positive life force many in the global south have needed
As someone who's spent a lot of time in the global south and met a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on the internet, I'm curious what evidence you have to back up your claim.
The internet has made a lot of things more convenient (sending mail, ordering goods and services for example) but there were solutions to these problems before (postal mail, catalogs, phone/mail order, etc).
The new stuff (social media in particular, and the instantaneous, always-connected nature of things in general, and the privacy-invading tendencies of online providers) is what we haven't figured out yet, and where most of the negative effect is coming from.
The commenter made a perfectly reasonable observation, actually, which could apply just as well to any sweeping modernization (for example the advent of mass-scale global trade, the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, or even colonialism). Each of these transformations have created winners and losers within the affected countries, and a heck of a lot of social churn to boot. It's pretty superficial to just say "net overall benefit, nevermind the losers" any of these cases.
So I'd say the onus is on you to provide comprehensive data to support your sweeping claim that the number of losers has been apparently negligible in the countries (including all factors, not just economic). And that's data, not your pile of subjective observations from the biased selection of people you met, here and there.
If you post an opinion, you'll be told by one person that you need to back it up with citations, and by another that it's too obvious to be worth saying. That's the internet for you.
As someone who's spent a lot of time in the global south and met a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on the internet, I'm curious what evidence you have to back up your claim.