Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 243 posts

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#81

Post by ryandrake »

mwsherman wrote: post #38

There is a remarkable disconnect between the critics and the users here. Note that no users were cited in the article. I understand not liking Facebook’s motives, that’s fine. Perhaps we can defer to the preferences of users here, who can choose to accept those motives or not, and to decide if the trade-off is an acceptable one. If we believe that they are unqualified to make this choice, one should explain that posi…

I know plenty of people who think Facebook is the Internet, and wouldn't even notice if their access to everything not-Facebook was blocked, let alone care. Facebook is today's AOL.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#82

Post by hellameta »

click170 wrote: post #33
oxide wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. >I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. why?

I can't speak for op but I agree with them and can explain why I feel that way. I believe most humans are inherently not evil even if they don't agree with me. They want to make the world a better place, and they are simply pursuing an agenda that accomplishes that in their eyes. I don't have any evidence that most people aren't evil, but in my day to day interactions I have yet to meet someone who I believe is since…

You should go deeper. That you believe people aren't evil from experience is not evidence that people do not do evil - it's evidence that nobody does evil knowingly/willingly etc. You can do 'evil' very easily if you don't think it's evil. If you've justified it in some way that makes it good. That's what's so dangerous about it.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#83

Post by awqrre »

yggydrasily wrote: post #17
devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

Zuckerberg is the new Bill Gates. In the 90s, Gates was notorious in his ruthlessness to define personal computing as a 100% Microsoft-only experience. Today, as you pointed out, Zuckerberg is pushing equally hard at defining the internet and Facebook to be one and the same. In both cases, it doesn't really matter whether or not the efforts are sincere. The outcome is just as undesirable for the general public either…

What Facebook is trying to do is completely different... you were always able to use non-microsoft products/programs on Windows or browse non-microsoft websites... what Facebook is trying to do is much worst (probably evil).

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#84

Post by Apocryphon »

kafkaesq wrote: post #39
devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. Agreed. Given what we know about his history, he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices . And that the fact that everything they say and do within his realm is relentlessly indexed, analyzed (with literally the most…

he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices.

It's tragic that this is a mistake we see again and again in tech, even with the presence of anti-authority/countercultural tendencies and groups in this field.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#85

Post by habosa »

awqrre wrote: post #83
yggydrasily wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg is the new Bill Gates. In the 90s, Gates was notorious in his ruthlessness to define personal computing as a 100% Microsoft-only experience. Today, as you pointed out, Zuckerberg is pushing equally hard at defining the internet and Facebook to be one and the same. In both cases, it doesn't really matter whether or not the efforts are sincere. The outcome is just as undesirable for the general public either…

What Facebook is trying to do is completely different... you were always able to use non-microsoft products/programs on Windows or browse non-microsoft websites... what Facebook is trying to do is much worst (probably evil).

You could also view it as not too different. Windows wanted to be the platform under everything. Now Facebook wants to be the platform under everything, and content/apps will have to go through Facebook (look at the direct publishing stuff they're already doing).

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#86

Post by digbyloftus »

zanny wrote: post #53
mwsherman wrote: post #38

There is a remarkable disconnect between the critics and the users here. Note that no users were cited in the article. I understand not liking Facebook’s motives, that’s fine. Perhaps we can defer to the preferences of users here, who can choose to accept those motives or not, and to decide if the trade-off is an acceptable one. If we believe that they are unqualified to make this choice, one should explain that posi…

How is a poor Indian citizen supposed to make a judgment on if having a locked down Internet where they can only use Facebook is better than this Internet they might not have even heard of with millions of websites? They only see one side of this argument if any at all. From their perspective they do not know alternatives even exist .

"Internet they might not have even heard of with millions of websites?"

If they haven't even heard of it then it doesn't sound like its a viable alternative does it?

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#87

Post by peteretep »

kafkaesq wrote: post #39
devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. Agreed. Given what we know about his history, he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices . And that the fact that everything they say and do within his realm is relentlessly indexed, analyzed (with literally the most…

Steve Jobs was the same.

Doesn't mean they weren't both right though.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#88

Post by bdamm »

Apocryphon wrote: post #84
kafkaesq wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. Agreed. Given what we know about his history, he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices . And that the fact that everything they say and do within his realm is relentlessly indexed, analyzed (with literally the most…

he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices. It's tragic that this is a mistake we see again and again in tech, even with the presence of anti-authority/countercultural tendencies and groups in this field.

Every day I'm asked to reduce the choices I provide to my users. I work in cryptography infrastructure. And frankly, sometimes it's much better to provide a sane default and let the ones who really care figure out their own path.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#89

Post by wslh »

habosa wrote: post #85
awqrre wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Facebook is trying to do is completely different... you were always able to use non-microsoft products/programs on Windows or browse non-microsoft websites... what Facebook is trying to do is much worst (probably evil).

You could also view it as not too different. Windows wanted to be the platform under everything. Now Facebook wants to be the platform under everything, and content/apps will have to go through Facebook (look at the direct publishing stuff they're already doing).

But the big difference is: you could reverse engineer Microsoft Windows to do what you want beyond the APIs provided but you can't reverse engineer Facebook because you don't have the code running on your machine.
Post reply on HN