We cannot choose by whom or where we are born. This adage turns into irony when a person faces a reality that contradicts their aspirations. That inner struggle still lingers today in the hearts of children born in eastern Indonesia. Infrastructure disparity remains a classic issue in this beloved nation.
Disparity is not merely about the price of basic goods that should be uniform across the archipelago. It concerns the most fundamental factors that determine those prices themselves. Infrastructure serves as the engine driving the economic system, shaping both the direction and value of a product. Without equivalent roads, ports, electricity, and telecommunications networks, prices simply reflect inequality. The rising trend of the digital economy from period to period has drawn my attention as an observer. Yet those upward graphs should not be read as a single issue. Indonesia is too vast to be simplified, and that vastness involves so many economic variables in determining the direction of progress.
The backbone of the digital economy is infrastructure. How can we speak of equitable distribution when its foundation has not been built on a massive scale? The 2025 survey by the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) shows national internet penetration reaching 80.66 percent, equivalent to 229.4 million people out of 284.4 million citizens. That aggregate figure hides a deep chasm. Java records 84.69 percent penetration and contributes 58.14 percent of national users, while Maluku and Papua stand at only 69.26 percent with a 3.71 percent contribution. At the survey launch in Jakarta on August 6, 2025, APJII Chairman Muhammad Arif Angga acknowledged that telecommunications infrastructure development remains concentrated in urban areas, leaving around 55 million people without internet access.
The Central Statistics Agency strengthens this finding. The 2024 Information and Communication Technology Development Index (IP-TIK) nationally stands at 6.02 out of 10. DKI Jakarta leads with 7.88 in the high category, while Papua lags far behind at 3.56 in the low category. More alarmingly, the inter-provincial index gap widened from 4.29 in 2023 to 4.32 in 2024. That gap is not narrowing. It is widening.
Two Engines That Must Ignite and Stay Balanced
Infrastructure is the foundation, while the pillar of the digital economy is education. Before discussing progress further, we are like a frog longing for the moon if digital literacy remains unfulfilled. The same APJII survey records a bitter fact: 76.71 percent of respondents do not use the internet for economic and business purposes. Connectivity has arrived, but the capacity to utilize it lags far behind.
I was born and raised far from the epicenter of progress. In the mid-1990s, while peers in growth centers were already adept at composing words on computer screens, children in eastern Nusantara were still neatly writing in lined notebooks. Three decades later, the form of backwardness has changed, but the distance traveled has barely shifted. BPS notes that the sub-index gap in ICT usage between provinces rose from 5.18 in 2023 to 5.33 in 2024. When I look toward the horizon of digitalization, I occasionally glance at the right side of the Nusantara map. Its speed is not yet balanced. An airplane can only take off when its left and right engines ignite with equal thrust. If one engine falters, the plane does not fly. It merely circles on the runway. Such is the condition of western and eastern Indonesia in developing digital economic infrastructure.
The state has truly made promises, and those promises are enshrined in the constitution. Article 31 paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution affirms that every citizen has the right to education, while paragraph (2) obliges the government to fund basic education. Article 28C paragraph (1) guarantees every person’s right to develop themselves and benefit from science and technology. Article 28F guarantees the right to communicate and obtain information through all available channels. These are not rhetoric but the highest norms binding state administrators.
Meanwhile, the wave of the digital economy continues to rise. The e-Conomy SEA 2025 report released by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company on November 11, 2025 projects that the gross merchandise value (GMV) of ASEAN’s digital economy will exceed US$300 billion, with revenue reaching US$135 billion. Indonesia remains the largest market in the region, approaching US$100 billion and growing 14 percent annually. By 2030, Indonesia’s GMV is estimated to range between US$180 billion and US$340 billion.
Florian Hoppe, Partner at Bain & Company, assesses that a decade of such growth has built a strong foundation for the next phase of value creation in Southeast Asia. This global optimism must be read alongside domestic warnings. National average growth, as APJII reminds us, is built on an uneven foundation. The word “average” is both comforting and misleading.
When Elon Musk landed Starlink at a community health center in Denpasar on May 19, 2024, promising connectivity for 3,400 health centers in disadvantaged, frontier, and outermost regions, and when Blue Origin enshrines its vision of millions of humans living and working in space for Earth’s benefit, we are still busy preparing the runway. This lag is not a matter of technology but of commitment and alignment.
At least three steps can be taken by policymakers so that the spirit of Merdeka Belajar delivers real impact in digital space. First, establish measurable equity targets rather than merely pursuing national averages. The Universal Service Obligation funds and Palapa Ring projects should be evaluated based on the narrowing of inter-provincial IP-TIK gaps, complete with clear deadlines, achievement indicators, and consequences for missing targets.
Second, treat digital literacy as soft infrastructure built simultaneously with towers and fiber optics. The fact that three out of four internet users in Indonesia do not utilize it for productive activities proves that networks without skills are merely empty pipes. Teacher training, project-based curricula, and community learning centers in lagging districts must receive budget allocations equal to hardware spending.
Third, decentralize the digital economy value chain. Fiscal incentives for data centers, after-sales services, and logistics hubs built outside Java will shift part of the added value to the east. In this way, regions will no longer remain mere markets for products designed, produced, and monetized elsewhere.
We need to learn from the progress of other nations. Today’s technological advancement in India is not a direct legacy of their ancestors. Mahatma Gandhi repeatedly reminded his people of the dangers of machine obsession. In the Young India edition of November 13, 1924, Gandhi asserted that his objection was not to machines themselves but to obsession with them. The highest consideration, he said, is humanity, and machines must not cripple the human body. This is precisely where its relevance lies for us as a great nation: technology that does not liberate humans will only increase the number of those left behind.
Tan Malaka provided the answer much earlier. In his 1921 brochure SI Semarang and Onderwijs, he firmly believed that the people’s independence could only be achieved through popular education. Therefore, digital equity is not a charitable project for the east but a prerequisite for this nation’s independence. The left engine has long been ignited. It is now time to ignite the right engine, not so the plane looks impressive on the runway, but so it truly flies with all its passengers on board.