>If you are concerned about the digital divide, then Unicode on the >web, and all that distributed processing and informational power in >those consumer PC's loaded up with Unicode-handling software for a >pittance, are your *friends* in the struggle to keep all economic >power from concentration in the top 0.01% of the world's hands.
Very true! In particular Unicode has great potential for empowering marginalized groups, whose native language/script was perhaps only accessible via various mutually incompatible font kludges (or .gif's on the web) in the pre-Unicode computer world. The value of being able to communicate/publish in a standard manner in any language far outweighs the possible problems faced by someone with old equipment/software trying to produce antique ligatures. And the cost, as Ken points out, is hardly an overwhelming obstacle: Apple is also currently selling refurb iMac's with fully Unicode capable OS X for $610.
