We hear about the rise of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), and one would assume that they are also coming on-par with the U.S. in terms of their internet connectivity and access to basic resources and infrastructures as part of that rise. After all, how can a country be developed unless most of its people have access to good health care and the internet, which the U.N. considers to be a human basic right. Evidence shows that Brazil's income ratio has remained steady and those of the remaining BRIC countries have only improved slightly. Income ratio is "the ratio of income in one country to the world mean." They gained their telephone mainline connections with a drastic lag behind the U.S., which is important because this technology is an infrastructure precursor to the Internet. This, coupled with the lack of PC technology penetration in the BRIC regions --- PCs constituting a primary use of the Internet --- could explain the lack of proliferation of Internet access through their population.
Why is China's internal inequalities so high despite the fact that it is quickly catching up with the U.S. in many areas? Even though China is catching up in many areas, it is still lacking in some. For example, while it's Quality of Life index is doing well in many areas, it still scores 8/100 in freedom. That's right, China only scores 8 points higher than the pirate nation Somalia. That, along with increasing life expectancies in some areas of China, are creating significant disparity between demographics in the country. The system is a self-feeding loop where social castes and oppression create inequality, and that inequality enables the system's continued existence.
Despite these issues, China has still emerged as a major global component in e-commerce. This represents a specific use in technology, in this case the Internet, where social inequalities may have a significant impact on the dissemination of that technology. China has an enormous number of online shoppers at twice as many as those in the U.S.; however, one would expect this number to be higher since China's population is 4x that of the U.S.