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

151–160 of 243 posts

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

#151

Post by slaxman »

Few points here:

1. It's not really internet. It's a set of 100 sites that includes a real estate portal and a personal blog. If you are talking about connecting the unconnected with essential services, why have these on your list? On the other hand, chennairains.org, a website that helped people during extreme floods in chennai was not on that list.

2. There is no proof that "free basics" actually improves internet connectivity. In fact, Facebook's telecom partner (Reliance Comm) advertises it as a way to save money for surfing on facebook and whatsapp.

3. None of the traffic must be encrypted

4. All traffic flows through facebook's servers

5. It's not an open platform. Facebook and Telcos reserve the right to accept or deny websites on "Free Basics"

The above points make it clear that "free internet" is a facade and it's more of a walled garden that makes facebook the gatekeeper. Another Telco launched something similar a few months ago and was scrapped because it violated net neutrality.

Arguments that "free basics" is required for internet to grow in India are ridiculous. India added _52 Million_ internet users in the first six months of 2015 (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-09-03/news...)

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

#152

Post by dingo_bat »

rms_returns wrote: post #150
avar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fre…

>donating that money to the farmers he intends to help.

Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. I think Zuckerberg is doing what he thinks is good, and I don't think free internet to farmers will do any bad. It might help only a few and by a little amount, but that is still better than nothing. Who are we to decide how somebody else organizes their charity?

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

#153

Post by dingo_bat »

slaxman wrote: post #151

Few points here: 1. It's not really internet. It's a set of 100 sites that includes a real estate portal and a personal blog. If you are talking about connecting the unconnected with essential services, why have these on your list? On the other hand, chennairains.org, a website that helped people during extreme floods in chennai was not on that list. 2. There is no proof that "free basics" actually improves internet…

Even though it seems a big number, 52 million is nothing compared to the people who still do not have access. I think the growth rate is not fast enough. We should be doubling the installed base every year. 52 million is just about 1/6 of the total number of users. And I'm inclined to believe that this sluggishness is due in part to the cost of access.

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

#154

Post by Pyxl101 »

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…

> If those opposing the FreeBasics are trying to decide on behalf of poor, isn't FreeBasics itself not doing the same thing?

No, not really. It's giving them an option, and they can decide for themselves.

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

#155

Post by Pyxl101 »

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.

It's not a false dichotomy. No one is offering to improve the basic infrastructure, nor lobby for it. The actual choices are the ones he outlined above.

Do you ascribe to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics? http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...

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

#156

Post by seshagiric »

People would actually benefit from the free (limited) internet. In fact most people are also ok if Facebook gets something back in return. It would have definitely helped if it was clearly stated as a commercial program and not an altruistic venture.

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

#157

Post by sirkneeland »

awqrre wrote: post #113
habosa wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You don't have to go through Microsoft to publish Windows apps... not sure if it changed with Windows 10 though... but of course they are trying to change that to be like Android and iOS and get complete control.

Windows 10 for PCs offers the store but does not require you to publish through it.

For now, anyway.

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

#159

Post by seshagiric »

slaxman wrote: post #151

Few points here: 1. It's not really internet. It's a set of 100 sites that includes a real estate portal and a personal blog. If you are talking about connecting the unconnected with essential services, why have these on your list? On the other hand, chennairains.org, a website that helped people during extreme floods in chennai was not on that list. 2. There is no proof that "free basics" actually improves internet…

Agree with most but to be fair, although currently the program is limited to few 100 sites, the way the program works is if you own a website, you can register it with Freebasics and they will provide free access. And to this the sites cannot be encrypted. For information like e.g. what helps Farmers, encryption need not be a blocker.

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

#160

Post by slaxman »

dingo_bat wrote: post #153
slaxman wrote: post #151

Few points here: 1. It's not really internet. It's a set of 100 sites that includes a real estate portal and a personal blog. If you are talking about connecting the unconnected with essential services, why have these on your list? On the other hand, chennairains.org, a website that helped people during extreme floods in chennai was not on that list. 2. There is no proof that "free basics" actually improves internet…

Even though it seems a big number, 52 million is nothing compared to the people who still do not have access. I think the growth rate is not fast enough. We should be doubling the installed base every year. 52 million is just about 1/6 of the total number of users. And I'm inclined to believe that this sluggishness is due in part to the cost of access.

Once you reach a certain scale of users, percentage growth don't matter because it's hard to hit big absolute numbers. In whichever way you look at it, 52Mn is a freakishly huge number. And this timeline is 6 months, not a year.

Further "Free basics" has been launched in other countries. But there is not proof that it results in more internet connectivity. (http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/ther...)

Post reply on HN