Edit : i was ignorant when i posted this however i think it is still safe to say that internet in most 3rd countries is bad or expensive in comparison to their income
Edit : i was ignorant when i posted this however i think it is still safe to say that internet in most 3rd countries is bad or expensive in comparison to their income
What that designation OFFICIALLY meant is that the country remained neutral during the Cold War. That’s all! The “First World” countries were NATO allies and the “Second World” countries were the other side led by the Soviet Union. The implication is that the countries that didn’t pick a side in the Cold War were underdeveloped (which is a flawed assumption, but it was partially correct AT THE TIME).
More recently, the term has become synonymous with “poor” countries, usually those filled with non-white people. Which is dumb, because plenty of the first- and second-world countries WERE and ARE very poor. And some countries that WERE under-developed during the Cold War have since become more developed. India is the most obvious example, it’s surpassing China in a lot of population+economic metrics now.
tl;dr “third world country” is a designation that’s not only offensive; it’s outdated, inaccurate, and dumb.
Case in point: Sweden and Finland were Third World countries.
As a neighbour, can confirm Sweden still is
And most of South America was First World! Such a dumb way to categorize countries, we declared them “developed” if and only if they were cool enough to participate in a stupid Cold War with us.
Sweden still is. Finland advanced to First World.
No, you should probably use developing countries anyways but this is something that is not as well taught as it should be so people in many places make this mistake when speaking.