Earlier quoted context omitted.
The closed nature of the internet is dangerous for reasons far beyond "mom and pop can't use the rest of the internet anyway" argument: 1. Content Quality reduces due to lack of choice, and lack of exposure: Closed-groups are places where spam, false information, propaganda breed to a high degree. Other parts of internet help verify claims/suspicions/hypothesis. 2. Sets up a monopoly, vendor-lock-in, changes habits:…
> Sets up a monopoly, vendor-lock-in, changes habits: Facebook would hold immeasurable power, once they've got people hooked onto thinking that there's nothing beyond their apps. I wanna deal with this monopoly argument I keep hearing everywhere in this thread. Can there be a monopoly of a web service? Facebook dethrowned MySpace, did myspace have a monopoly? MySpace dethrowned Friendster. If Google has a monopoly in…
India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
171–180 of 224 posts
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been debated to death. There is no evidence to prove this was wrong. People who are this childish to question government policy right after independence should understand prevailing conditions then. India just got free from a colonial power which had sneaked in with trade as a excuse and then ruined pretty much everything for the next 3 centuries. Conditions prevailing, Nehru did what he could. He saw what h…
In 1950s India was actually called "Hope of Asia", even by the Colonialists who left them. But under the auspicious of Nehru and then under Indira Gandhi, India aped Soviet style planning and top down approach for a country that is a "natural confederation", marginalized local government and consolidated power in the Center, and the Nationalization of banks which has not great National Security implications. JRD Tata…
You are basically proving my point, India is a 4 stage rocket stuck in stage 2. Nehru died in 1964. 52 years ago. India is still a country with 56% population in Agriculture and on top of it, literacy rate of 71% (which I honestly think is padded). And the Alphabet soup of defense establishments, and you got LCA Tejas which is third rate fighter and Indigenous Arjun is miles away from T-92 and the satellite program is not as advanced as NASA in 1960s (they landed a man on the moon).
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#173Probably the most progressive regulation among anywhere in the world. Enforcement of these #NetNeutrality principles is the literal granting of the Liberties and Equalities of opportunities, granted to individuals and as such this is a landmark order that will have far reaching repercussions. Worth noting how this played out. A bunch of folks on the internet, organised themselves and campaigned to stop a $300B market…
How is it progressive? This is conservative (not wanting change).
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#174Mark "tried to solve a non existent problem" and fell over. India is not a country where everyone rides on bullocarts or tuk tuks. Its a fast developing nation. Its not what you see in Hollywood movies or western medias. India do not need help on the internet side of things.
We didn't have a problem in the 1990s by not having a smartphones. We didn't have a problem without the internet. We didn't have a problem without electricity.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#175Congratulations..this is great news for India!
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#1762) I'm curious how the legislation prevents FB from charging for this service. And what the minimum cost is regulated at.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
People who opposed coke were a minority, who weren't taken seriously by their own political representatives. Slow adoption of technology had more to do with fear of automation and job losses, than anything.
> People who opposed coke were a minority, who weren't taken seriously by their own political representatives. Well then why Coca Cola and IBM were forced to leave the country? George Fernandes was Union minister when he ordered them to leave India. I don't think you can get any more high profile than that.
Coca Cola has been in bad news for other reasons. If you sell a pesticide poisoned drink, you must expect to be held accountable by the law someday.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what the internet should be like. The thing is: how does banning Free Basics / Internet.org provide that? That's what bothers me about this movement: it should be about giving poor people free access to the Net (which would just render Facebook's toy platform irrelevant - no need to ban it). Today a bunch of activists are celebrating victory, but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access. It's hard…
> but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access That would still be the case if the verdict was the other way around. There's no evidence that Free Basics actually brought a significant number of new people on the internet (the rate of people cited as joining Free Basics is comparable to the rate of people joining the internet in general, so it didn't change anything) Note that data plans are pretty cheap…
That's my point: there's nothing to celebrate here, as nothing as changed. People without full Internet access still don't have it. And so, for what is the post thanking a lot of people?
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I don't see how it addresses my point.
The point is that Free Basics existing would automatically remove a huge amount of incentive for other solutions appearing. Why bother building a better internet if FB already provides "the essentials" to everyone? It would wipe the market before it had a chance to develop organically as it happened elsewhere. If AOL had provided free access to its own services only we would have a very different network today.
And besides, before AOL there was CompuServe (and Minitel, in France), which did provide access almost exclusively to its own services.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#180This 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…
Yes, it is a problem that Facebook is not the saviour. 1. But with a huge untapped market like India, won't there be any other corporations who would step in to build a Mozilla Phone or the Grameen Phone style projects in India? 2. Not even looking to these saviors, it will definitely be the Network operators themselves who will be tapping this market. Even with Free Basics, it was not Facebook that was subsidizing t…
2. They can only do so with their own products now. Not Facebook.