Almost 50% of the world is online. What about the other 50%?

Connecting developed nations was relatively easy, but getting the rest of the world online will be far more difficult

• Exclusive: dramatic slowdown in global growth of internet access
• Life at the bottom of the global league of internet access

There are two kinds of people in the world: those with internet access and those without. But the decades-long drive to convert the latter into the former is beginning to falter, the Guardian reveals today, prompting hard questions about whether connecting the world is even possible.

The reality, however, is far less black and white than the statistics make it sound. People access the internet in different ways, they use it for different things - and some of them even access different internets entirely. As William Gibson said, 25 years ago, the future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed.