Introducing the Internet.org App • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#61

Post by reitanqild » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:15 AM UTC

volent wrote: post #10

It's funny how they describe the app as "providing a set of [...] basic services" and they include Facebook. Not a basic service at all in my opinion. (Also there is no Twitter, what a surprise !)

Agree or not but I have a very clear feeling that developing nations are not twitters demographic nor is it their target demographic.

Just think about it: Who are people following on twitter? Mostly not neigbours and general relatives. The only instances I have seen where twitter has helped people anywhere close to developing countries was during the revolts in Egypt and I have a a feeling even those reports where kind of inflated before they reached our tech bubble.

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#62

Post by icebraining » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:33 AM UTC

Kinnard wrote: post #35

Wait. I don't understand. Why not just give people http?

Because that would be killing the mobile internet market, which means the provider would ask for much, much more money in exchange.

In many countries, it could also be ruled as anti-competitive (dumping laws and such).

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#63

Post by higherpurpose » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:51 AM UTC

choffee wrote: post #37

Is there somewhere to complain about the domain name being an .org as this seems to be the opposite of the internet. Why don't they just give people 200Mb of free data if they really want to promote the internet. A better site name might be corpnet.com lockinnet.com.

Facebook.org would've been better.

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#64

Post by kybernetyk » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:51 AM UTC

sfeng wrote: post #46

choffee wrote: post #37

Is there somewhere to complain about the domain name being an .org as this seems to be the opposite of the internet. Why don't they just give people 200Mb of free data if they really want to promote the internet. A better site name might be corpnet.com lockinnet.com.

They're giving people something for free. It's hard to complain about that.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#65

Post by cine » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:52 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #15

One of my sisters and her husband live in Zambia, where they do public health work. Specifically, he works on malaria[1], and one of the greatest challenges he faces is field data collection. Enabling everyone with a compatible phone to send in data would, I'm sure, be incredibly valuable. I'm bummed that there aren't any public health tools included in this app. Hopefully they'll consider adding something like that…

FactsForLife is included, doesn't that count as a public health tool? Not sure what you mean specifically, but this appears to at least educate around a lot of health topics. http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/

I can see the value of data collection too though, but I think for a person accessing the internet for the first time, they would be more interested in gaining information than sending data about themselves into the void.

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#66

Post by kybernetyk » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:54 AM UTC

dm2 wrote: post #42

kome wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you trust facebook? How a non net-neutral Internet is good for Zambia? It's just clever marketing from facebook. Nothing else. Creating news costumers forced to use faceboook to keep his numbers high and growing. Its shady privacy policy and unethical experiments (and don't forget the NSA collaboration) makes of Facebook one of the worst corporations out there. I invite you to close your account.

You're probably right, I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt, they have been trying very hard the past few years to recreate their image and implement privacy controls. I saw recently one person talking about when you delete your Facebook account it's a true delete rather than a soft-delete, but I'm not sure how true that is, stuff like that goes a long way and matters to me.

> I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt

You can't give them that benefit because their company culture was founded on "They trust me — dumb fucks" [0]

[0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#67

Post by Omniusaspirer » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:55 AM UTC

dm2 wrote: post #5

I guess it's official, Facebook isn't going anywhere and will continue to become more and more part of our lives. They're getting close to the level of Google (which I do trust with my data because they are transparent about most issues before people start asking them to be). http://newsroom.fb.com/pages-directory/ http://newsroom.fb.com/resources-projects/ We can avoid Facebook all we want but one of these days ther…

"They trust me — dumb fucks" - Mark Zuckerberg

While someone will come along and tell me he's changed so much since this comment and it's irrelevant at this point in time I still think it's foolish to place any trust in a company that was pretty much founded on this concept.

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#68

Post by lucb1e » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 10:55 AM UTC

My perspective on this as I just said to someone:

It's an opportunity I wouldn't pass on I guess, but this is basically net neutrality in reverse.

When companies start deciding which websites are free and for which you pay the "normal" price, suddenly the normal price is extra.

---

So yeah a Facebook app that offers Facebook access for free. How convenient, right? For good measure throw in another few services that look good but are still limited (google search without being able to click any links? Lovely) and we have something that we can present as a good thing to the world.

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#69

Post by __david__ » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 11:05 AM UTC

sniuff wrote: post #36

I don't understand why is everyone here crying how evil this is. They are going to provide FREE Internet access to the basic websites and how that is a bad thing?

It's not free "internet" access. The "Internet" is the place where I can route arbitrary IP packets to any other host on the net. It is not 7 or 8 sites chosen by God speaking HTTP on port 80 (443 if you're lucky).

Re: Introducing the Internet.org App

#70

Post by __david__ » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 11:07 AM UTC

octo_t wrote: post #39

volent wrote: post #10

It's funny how they describe the app as "providing a set of [...] basic services" and they include Facebook. Not a basic service at all in my opinion. (Also there is no Twitter, what a surprise !)

communication is a basic service (and human right!)

Are you implying that access to Facebook is a human right?