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India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

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Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#131
post #68

This has been like watching one form of misinformation battling another form of misinformation. One set of misguided people battling another set of misguided people. NetNeutrality is a concept that makes sense in a western context where carriers are basically monopolies. It's unbelievable how good arguments in one context, have been blindly applied to a completely unrelated context. Activists in the West (who's rep a…

>> NetNeutrality is a concept that makes sense in a western context where carriers are basically monopolies.

This to me sounds like Winston Churchill saying Indians don't deserve democracy as those are the luxuries of rich white populated western countries.

>>It's unbelievable how good arguments in one context, have been blindly applied to a completely unrelated context.

People rights are the same. We here in India are humans too.

>>Free markets are dead. Regulation driven by manufactured outrage or vested interests manufacturing outrage are alive and thriving.

Whole point of these protests was to keep the ecosystem for a free market alive.

>> If Christian missionaries or Hindu missions go and setup schools and libraries for free in Rural India is someone protesting differential pricing in Urban India. It's ridiculous.

India has a thriving debate on keeping religion out of schools.

>>The people who loose out are the farmer\weaver who just need an email address to be linked to the cities. Who is going to provide that now? Rural India is so vast and voiceless that they are the automatic loosers in such a debate.

You completely under estimate internet penetration in India. Nearly every body who needs it, already has access to basics. Those who don't, have bigger issues than liking somebody's Facebook status.

Those people eating rotis made from wild grass in bundelkhand have bigger issues. Their issues have more to do with irrigation infrastructure and other larger systemic issues in India in general(not the right time to discuss these issues in this thread). Not facebook or email.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#132
post #68

This has been like watching one form of misinformation battling another form of misinformation. One set of misguided people battling another set of misguided people. NetNeutrality is a concept that makes sense in a western context where carriers are basically monopolies. It's unbelievable how good arguments in one context, have been blindly applied to a completely unrelated context. Activists in the West (who's rep a…

They will protest if the schools restrict to teaching Catholicism or the Vedas respectively.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#133
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you call it it works really well and India is stupid to play by the colonialist's rules. Look at China, they banned or restricted all the western web companies now they're home to thriving new web giants. With all of India's world class programmers where is India's Baidu or Wechat or Weibo or Alibaba?

Same place where France's Google, Germany's Amazon is at, they don't need it. China is wasting effort by creating things because they don't wanna use the things rest of the world uses, and the rest of the world doesn't wanna use their things because it would be giving power to a non-liberal democracy.

>Same place where France's Google, Germany's Amazon is at, they don't need it.

Germany and France are 1/10 the population of India or smaller. India is 2x+ USA populations.

>China is wasting effort by creating things because they don't wanna use the things rest of the world uses, and the rest of the world doesn't wanna use their things because it would be giving power to a non-liberal democracy.

Then of course US citizens can have their cake and eat it too, both using what "the whole world uses" AND having control over them because its their services.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on a commodity market or even search for a job," he said. Indians use connectivity very differently than the rest of the world(or at least different from the developed countries). To Indians, phon…

>it's just that Hindi Wikipedia and Google suck And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse? Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc. You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation t…

> What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?

How about saying to him that he should make his WhatsApp competitor work well on feature phones and low bandwidth connections, and then submit it for inclusion with Free Basics?

Free Basics is open to almost any site that can meet a few technical requirements, which are basically that it works well on feature phones and in low bandwidth scenarios and when going through a proxy. There are also some non-technical requirements, such as giving permission to use their logos in Free Basics marketing. [1]

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t...

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same place where France's Google, Germany's Amazon is at, they don't need it. China is wasting effort by creating things because they don't wanna use the things rest of the world uses, and the rest of the world doesn't wanna use their things because it would be giving power to a non-liberal democracy.

> Same place where France's Google, Germany's Amazon is at, they don't need it. Germany and France are 1/10 the population of India or smaller. India is 2x+ USA populations. > China is wasting effort by creating things because they don't wanna use the things rest of the world uses, and the rest of the world doesn't wanna use their things because it would be giving power to a non-liberal democracy. Then of course US c…

You need to read the glorious days of protectionism and economy of India from 1950-1990. 4% growth has its own nick-name, "Hindu rate of growth".

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#137
post #68

This has been like watching one form of misinformation battling another form of misinformation. One set of misguided people battling another set of misguided people. NetNeutrality is a concept that makes sense in a western context where carriers are basically monopolies. It's unbelievable how good arguments in one context, have been blindly applied to a completely unrelated context. Activists in the West (who's rep a…

I guess we should let a billionaire with obvious conflicts of interest hold control over what poor of the country should use.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's just that Hindi Wikipedia and Google suck And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse? Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc. You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation t…

> And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse? Nope, just saying that non-English Indian language internet sucks. Yes it gets better when more and more people are using it, but that still doesn't change the fact that millions of people currently don't have internet in a form which they can use to make their lives better. > What do you say to the Indian coder who…

So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity?

Frankly, I dont see a scenario where the third world remains unconnected through 2030, including India. There is much profit to be made connecting Billions (with a b) of people to the world economy; far too much profit that something as insignificant as running cable will forever keep them unconnected.

14 years of technological advancement. What radios do you think the iPhone 14s will have built in? Are you willing to bet an entire country's access to the (actual) internet that it will be the same radios we have available today?

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#139
Note in the USA, Verizon does not ding uses of their data cap if they use Verizon's video content Go90, however it does if the users use YouTube. It is interesting that in India the net neutrality has been taken to a much higher degree than in the US itself. But I don't think what India did is a bad thing in the long run(even though the acceleration of people moving to use Internet for first time will get hurt a little bit in the short term)

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#140
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse? Nope, just saying that non-English Indian language internet sucks. Yes it gets better when more and more people are using it, but that still doesn't change the fact that millions of people currently don't have internet in a form which they can use to make their lives better. > What do you say to the Indian coder who…

>>Same thing you're going to say to that 18 year old kid in the year 2030 whose life could have been different had he lived in a more connected India. There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few days. You seem to be suggesting that another drug, which can relieve the patient of some of the pains for the next hour, but is sure to kill the patient in the next few months be administered…

> There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few days.We fundamentally disagree upon the nature of net neutrality. I do not believe net neutrality is a good thing, and getting rid of it would be a good thing.

The fundamental fact is that all bits aren't created equal. Facebook wants to pay for some bits by attaching the economic value of future customer, and that is fundamentally a justified thing.

In America T-mobile recently launched Binge On program under which Netflix and Youtube won't count against a monthly data plan. People on HN are hell bent on claiming that somehow this is a bad thing, but the fact is, for most people this makes their lives better.

I'm surprised that TRAI (an organization which should be gotten rid of completely according to me) caved in to Net Neutrality proponents. In future you'll see when in America Net Neutrality will be removed and how much benefit it brings to the people.

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