Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#241

Post by wildmusings » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

rdlecler1 wrote: post #234

wildmusings wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

There are a lot of assumptions and learning from 200 years of capitalism baked into that remark. The rampant 'success' of capitalism was also a factor leading to communism. Like any good self regulating system it needs mechanisms in place to control it's own greed. Also, altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory because it assumes a more enlightened, rather than simple minded, understanding of alt…

I'm not against altruism. That's not the point I was trying to make at all.

But whereas altruistic solutions to problems require continual interest from the donor class (which is subject the same fads as the rest of our culture), or government coercion (which eventually gets co-opted by political considerations), market solutions are robust because people are profiting from them. We'd all love to feed the starving people of the world, but sending ships full of free food isn't the solution (and can actually be harmful). It's much much more effective to set in motion the market forces that will create a stable food supply year after year.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#242

Post by fucking_tragedy » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 7:55 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #146

Crito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they truly had altruistic intentions, they damn well could be.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

Reminder that capitalism required driving people from their land and ability to provide for themselves so that there's a permanent cheap labor force willing to work for practically nothing to survive.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#243

Post by fucking_tragedy » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

rdlecler1 wrote: post #234

wildmusings wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

There are a lot of assumptions and learning from 200 years of capitalism baked into that remark. The rampant 'success' of capitalism was also a factor leading to communism. Like any good self regulating system it needs mechanisms in place to control it's own greed. Also, altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory because it assumes a more enlightened, rather than simple minded, understanding of alt…

Multicellular organisms are made up of single cells which, if not for being neutered by evolution, would compete selfishly to the detriment of the organism as a whole.

Without that regulation, multicellular organisms wouldn't exist.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#244

Post by fucking_tragedy » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 8:07 PM UTC

likerofnews wrote: post #194

quadrangle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Facebook is rich enough and powerful enough to MAKE the choice be full-internet or nothing. They and other powerful entities can provide full internet. It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. FaceBook is not some savior here. The ramifications of pushing everyone to FB are also devastating because they would force everyone to get locked in to using F…

> It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. It's Facebook's fault that many Indians can't afford the Internet? Okay...it's also Facebook's fault that there is poverty in the world. You know, poverty that spontaneously started to exist in 2004, when Facebook was founded.

Where did the OP imply any of that?

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#245

Post by firasd » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #232

firasd wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Free Basics is doing anything about electricity or connectivity? It is just zero-rating for Facebook & partner apps, riding on top of infrastructure and services built by existing telecom networks in the country with the "extremely corrupt" and "failed" government.

Why the scare quotes around "extremely corrupt"? Do you really think otherwise? India is notorious for pervasive total corruption from top to bottom. Facebook is not doing anything about electricity; I mention that statistic to demonstrate how modern infrastructure has failed to reach a huge portion of Indians. Facebook has come up with a business model that can reach people that don't have the ability to pay out of…

I'm quoting your phrases to contrast that the fact that, notwithstanding governmental failure and corruption, the reason Facebook can do this at all is because the spread of mobile phones and internet access in India has been a major success story. There are about 900 million mobile connections, and internet adoption is accelerating, with nearly 100 million users added in an year (this is close a third of the total internet user base, so we're talking double-digit growth over 20%.)

Facebook has not come up with a business model that makes it profitable for telecoms to serve people. They've just used their negotiating power, PR resources, government and corporate lobbying to convince telecoms to zero-rate Free Basics, calling it philanthropy.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#246

Post by salgernon » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

I think this could all be resolved by letting Facebook pay the cost, but if they're going to restrict where you can go, require that they are restricting it to a competitor. Twitter maybe? lesswrong? And first level outgoing links from those sources.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#247

Post by drdeca » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 11:35 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #146

Crito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they truly had altruistic intentions, they damn well could be.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

I'm not sure that any system doesn't need /any/ altruism. It may be the case that systems which do not require much altruism to function work better, because there is a higher chance of the requirement being met, but I think that a good system would also have mechanism by which altruism can provide further benefits.

If what is required for people to act in a way that benefits others is for the people to be motivated to act that way, it seems that people being motivated by the benefit that their actions have for others would be a good motivation for them to act that way, as far as it is an available motivation.

Which, seems compatible with some senses of the word "capitalism". People value their own well-being, and the well-being of others, by some amounts, and based on that, take actions and make agreements with others so as to serve these ends as they see fit.

Of course, in that sense any system could be seen as a sort of capitalism, leading capitalism to be almost like a tautology?

Which doesn't seem to match how people use it, so either I don't understand the intent behind how people use it, or, uh, it's almost kind of empty? Probably the former.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#248

Post by tzakrajs » Sat, Dec 26, 2015, 11:36 PM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #208

minusSeven wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't even have to go that far just offer free free 2g (without edge internet). It the slowest speed possible but sites like wikipedia will work well on them. It will help people to know important stuff without wasting time on facebook.

but then Facebook experience may be affected. when was the last time someone in the valley/sf even tested their sites/apps on 3g? let alone 2g...

Google does this and is focused on optimizing their products for 2G. It's the kind of behavior a company will exhibit when they focus on the user first.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#249

Post by rdlecler1 » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 12:18 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #241

rdlecler1 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of assumptions and learning from 200 years of capitalism baked into that remark. The rampant 'success' of capitalism was also a factor leading to communism. Like any good self regulating system it needs mechanisms in place to control it's own greed. Also, altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory because it assumes a more enlightened, rather than simple minded, understanding of alt…

I'm not against altruism. That's not the point I was trying to make at all. But whereas altruistic solutions to problems require continual interest from the donor class (which is subject the same fads as the rest of our culture), or government coercion (which eventually gets co-opted by political considerations), market solutions are robust because people are profiting from them. We'd all love to feed the starving pe…

Agree, donor based systems are non-sustainable. But tax based systems for public goods are. The Facebook initiative looks innocuous enough but Facebook is creating a dependency that could be very dangerous for the public good as the perceived marginal cost of other services is seen to be too high.

The Internet is a basic utility and public good. Monopoly usually doesn't seem to be a good model for these kinds of systems.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#250

Post by iofj » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 2:00 AM UTC

thecrazyone wrote: post #231

iofj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minus: might become a barrier to entry to other services Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Which of these is more important ? That's the big question being discussed here. And of course the people discussing how this might stand in the way of their future profits feel absolutely no need to provide an alternative ...

>Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Chat, fb, etc is free for now, because Facebook "allows" it to be free. Once everyone is on free basics, they can do a U-turn and say only Facebook messenger, Facebook website, Facebook * is free. What are you going to do then? What prevents them from doing this? Letting FB or any comp…

Point 1: FB can't U-turn. Only the local telcos can do that. Judging by history they will in fact do that.

Point 2: FB is not a gatekeeper in free basics. FB simply provides a convenient door for the local telcos to open.

Point 3: The telcos, better known as the Indian government's corrupt cronies (meaning the Indian government gave ownership away to specific individuals), were, are, and will be the gatekeepers.

Making it slightly more difficult for some multinationals (other social networks, MS, linkedin, ...) to make profits in the future does not justify taking this away. If you feel this is unfair, then either convince the Indian government to provide your brand of free internet. I'm sure the amount of money that requires is a factor 10 less of what you'd think it is, which of course still makes it half a billion dollars or so.

In case you've missed it somehow. The internet is centralizing. That's the whole point of the cloud. That is what's being defended here. You're just defending one company centralizing against another. Amazon (including ec2), Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Oracle, ... all are centralized computing platforms that give you zero say in how your software runs, how your data is kept, and you can bet your ass all of these will lock you out. That is the thing they all agree on.

You seem to think this hasn't happened yet, but think about it. This has happened, it's too late.