Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by rms_returns » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 2:52 AM UTC

drumdance wrote: post #73

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…

Microsoft was in a class by themselves in terms of how their ruthlessness played out. Harsh negotiation demands plus technical bullshit like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code I haven't heard stories like this about Facebook, but perhaps they're better at covering their tracks.

They did their best to kill Linux:

- Negotiation and "arrangements" with OEMs that they will only pre-install Windows on all devices.

- Allowing "selective piracy" to happen so the masses are addicted only to Windows, while they still earn from corporate clients.

- Making Word/Excel formats not compatible with ODF (Open Document Format), thus making it difficult for OpenOffice/LibreOffice to function.

If I think about it, it seems like a wonder that I even have Linux running on my laptop today!

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

#142

Post by MawNicker » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 2:54 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #138

MawNicker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was utterly obvious that a monopoly should provide and service the local infrastructure. Would you also like free market roads? How about the electrical grid? Water? Sewage? Local infrastructure isn't a fungible commodity. If it were then traffic jams and blackouts wouldn't be a thing. Also, local demand isn't scalable. You only need one road outside your house. Several competing roads would be horribly…

As I pointed out in my earlier post, I don't agree that fiber cables are anything like roads (or sewage, for that matter). "Infrastructure" means many things, and it's certainly not obvious that the same solution is the best for all. My point was actually that when the inherently monopolistic aspect is factored out the free market can flourish. This is how it works in Europe. I live in a Western European country. Thi…

As I pointed out in my earlier post, I don't agree that fiber cables are anything like roads

The earlier post:

Except fiber cables are not at all like roads, in that you can run dozens side by side in less space than a single water pipe.

Ah. That's a great point actually. Maybe the solution is just to have the public provide and support this "fiber pipe". Not the fiber; Just the pipe. This would lower the barriers to competition for last mile connectivity. I still think this ought to be insulated from the upstream connectivity providers. To continue the analogy: The cables are self-driving uber-like taxies and the pipe is the rode. I want regulation to ensure every taxi is totally interoperable with every private freeway/bridge/airline in a given area. I also want the option to just use the taxi for local services. I don't want a taxi cartel to tell me where to shop.

I live in a Western European country. This is not how it works here.

Okay. I'm pretty ignorant about these issues. I'm operating from a cached worldview. I did some searching and I'll concede this point. I'm a sucker for "Europe has this figured out already" narratives. I still like the idea. In general I'm opposed to government protected monopolies. If monopoly is the emergent reality then it should be reduced to the narrowest causal factor and kept under government control. Everything that remains should be returned to the free market.

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

#143

Post by cvs268 » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

myth_buster wrote: post #80

The fb's attempt to control the internet in third world country brings this quote to mind... When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks. In this day and age, Internet should be a utility, with government subsidizing it if required while preventing _walled gardens_.

More likely a Microsoft Surface in a Samsung Galaxy :-)

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

#144

Post by asift » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #125

asift wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they don't see other alternatives. This is true, but the reality is that other realistic alternatives don't even exist. Their realistic option set is: (a) free access to an incredibly valuable set of resources, or (b) nothing. I would take (a) over (b) any day. I would hope that broader alternatives would eventually come along (and history tells us it will), but the crowd that wants the Indian poor to h…

It's not an either/or. You're drawing a false dichotomy and then choosing the lesser of two evils. There is a third possibility as others have pointed out which is to actually lobby for improving all the basic infrastructure so that the real internet and not some hobbled version of it is available and accessible to everyone.

I'm talking about right at this immediate moment. You're correct they can lobby, but while they take the time to engage in that process, they will either have Zuckerburg's free internet or they will have nothing. The dichotomy is very real in the present.

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

#145

Post by cobookman » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:08 AM UTC

r3bl wrote: post #135

x5n1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free Basics by Facebook provides free access to basic internet services to a billion people all over the world. Your service can be part of it." Basic internet service. Ok. One app constitutes basic internet according to Zuckerborg.

> Your service can be part of it. This part is my favorite. I know that my personal website is ineligible because it contains some JavaScript code that handles the navigation, but I submitted it regardlessly just to see how complicated the process is (and to write a blog post about my experience so that others would know what to expect). That was like 20 days ago. I'm still waiting for someone from Facebook to contac…

You weren't joking. Should be as dumb as getting your webpage crawled by google: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?pli=1

Why all the wording:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/how-to-sub...

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

#146

Post by asift » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:09 AM UTC

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #98

asift wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they don't see other alternatives. This is true, but the reality is that other realistic alternatives don't even exist. Their realistic option set is: (a) free access to an incredibly valuable set of resources, or (b) nothing. I would take (a) over (b) any day. I would hope that broader alternatives would eventually come along (and history tells us it will), but the crowd that wants the Indian poor to h…

>Heck, I might not even mind some gated internet in the US if I was free to opt-in/out of it and it reduced my internet costs. The key difference is you would still have choice in the US and people in India would not.

I want people in India to have a choice. They can choose to accept Zuckerburg's free internet or they can wait for something else to come along.

It's Zuckerburg's critics that want to deny Indians their right to choose by taking away their free service and leaving them without internet in the present. As was noted earlier, the most vocal critics in this situation are not the poor people in India that are most directly impacted by this situation.

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

#147

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

abhaga wrote: post #137

hackinthebochs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. It is downright appalling every time I see someone from a place of privilege declare what's best for the unprivileged. All this vitriol against FreeBasics is exactly that. Until I see a mass of extremely poor indians with no internet access reject FreeBasics because they don't want facebook to have their "data", all this hate is just self-serving bluster in my eyes.

You speak as if those not on the internet can not already joining it in hordes. And those opposed to FreeBasics are somehow holding the keys. When looking at the two camps here, you seriously believe the motives of Facebook and Telecom companies that have clear business interest in having users locked up in their walled gardens but doubt the intentions of a motley group of activists including startup founders, univer…

>can not already joining it in hordes.

Sorry, I can't figure out what you meant here.

>you seriously believe the motives of Facebook and Telecom companies that have clear business interest

I'm absolutely 100% convinced FB is doing this to be in on the ground floor of the explosion of internet access in India. And I don't see that as a bad thing. AOL happened, and it helped get a lot of people online earlier than they would have otherwise (AOL was my first foray online). The free and open internet will survive. But getting poor people online ASAP is the far more important concern for them than ensuring that their access is completely open when they do.

Furthermore, I'm not questioning the motives of those that are loudly against this. Their motives are crystal clear. It's those very motives that are misplaced. The values of the privileged are entirely different from the unprivileged. The problem is that the privileged tend to have a tragically narrow perspective and assume that their values are universally correct.

I mean, how easy is it to say "free and open access or nothing (for them)!" when you're not personally giving up anything? It's absurd on its face.

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

#148

Post by codexon » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

lunula wrote: post #57

harveywi wrote: post #40

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 Does anyone recall what Zuckerberg said about the people who "trust him"?

Apparently we shouldn't mention this here because he said it when he was young and likely to say reprehensible things. But, has he ever apologized? I am discontent to watch the world lay power at his feet, and proud of Indians for standing up to him.

This is what he said.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/

And young is when you are in your early teens, I think he was a junior in college when this happened and his frontal cortex should have been fully developed by then.

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

#149

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:18 AM UTC

abhaga wrote: post #133

hackinthebochs wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what the fuss is over this. Using your analogy, if AOL were legitimately free to non-technical folks, it would be worth it for many of them to have their curated/locked in ecosystem. I can't help but feel the hate for freebasics is an example of the privileged declaring what's best for the unprivileged.

If those opposing the FreeBasics are trying to decide on behalf of poor, isn't FreeBasics itself not doing the same thing? In fact the word play now is just ridiculous. When questioned about the above, they point out that this is an open platform now where any service can come in. When questioned on why not simply give free capped bandwidth then, the answer is that "basic internet services" like education, health are…

I'm not exactly sure what the problem is. Ultimately the target user can choose from whatever options are available to them (apparently freebasics or nothing right now). For a free service there certainly is a limited amount of bandwidth available. It makes sense to ensure that the maximum amount of users get the maximum utility from it, which means preventing the bandwidth sink that porn will be.

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

#150

Post by rms_returns » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 3:20 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #30

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,…

Oh come on, this is a guy who poorly disguises a press release about a restructuring of his finances as a letter to his daughter. It's much more likely that Zuckerberg realizes his company is overvalued, and that he needs to acquire a massive amount of users to make up for that gap. Subsidizing a walled-garden version of the Internet where users can only use Facebook in developing countries makes strategic sense for…

I'm from India and the conditions of many farmers is pathetic here, poverty isn't a word enough to describe their condition. They are illiterate, exploited by higher-ups in the society and struggle to get even basic necessities in life. Conditions are so gloomy that on average, one farmer commits suicide every thirty minutes in this country!

And these are the people whom Zuckerberg is targeting for the FreeBasics free internet program. Maybe, he thinks that socializing on FB or performing a quick google search on farming methods is going to help them, but that is far from reality and just fascinating thinking. All I know is that the millions that Mr. ZUckerberg spent on displaying FreeBasics ads in the Indian newspapers and TV channels would have been much better spent by actually donating that money to the farmers he intends to help.