Advanced modulation also initiated the beginning of a rural/urban Internet class divide: cities tend to have shorter POTS loops, which better support higher operating rates. For many rural customers, a putatively high-speed modem would in practice degrade to a lower operating rate, approximating older technology. In the prevailing gold-rush mentality, web site design tended to cater to the well-heeled urban base by larding in ever more complex page design (often centered around online advertising business models and the race for eyeballs), until popular sites with even the most basic functionality—functionality which had been perfectly well served by basic text—became bandwidth profligate. For this reason, it was not uncommon following the advent of advanced modulation for rural users—users whose bandwidth was effectively capped by their physical copper loop rather than the modulation technology employed—to experience an actual decline in Internet usability.