I hope this turns into a more permanent decision. Indians need to keep sending emails to TRAI. Indian government should be worried about handing over private details of Indians to the NSA on a silver platter. But even without that risk, Free Basics can evolve into something disastrous for Indian startup scene and jobs/innovation.<p>Lets look at two extreme scenarios.<p>->India without net neutrality: Everyone has free Facebook. "Free basics" didn't help in advancing electrification of the country but it did provide free facebook/wikipedia to everyone. So 30% of the country is still in dark. But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer. A young founder launches a new education app to teach reading/writing to poor villagers. But she first needs to get a 'license' from facebook. Facebook doesn't think it is a good idea for its users to 'waste' time on other services instead of watching ads on FB, so it declines. Startups don't receive as much funding because of the 'licensing' issues and there aren't as many Indian tech companies as there could've been. News is censored by Facebook and Facebook can now influence Indian politics. 100,000 fewer jobs were created because the Indian tech scene didn't take off.<p>->India with net neutrality: 50% of the country cannot pay for internet. They still don't have access to internet. They use other forms of communication to get their daily, unfiltered news. The startup scene in India is growing at its natural pace and the culture has become more innovative. In another 10-15 years everyone will have internet. 100's of thousands of poor were lifted out of poverty due to tech jobs in India.<p>One is a short term 'fix' which ruins the future. Another is a little bit harder but provides for a better future.
I had this exchange with a VP at Facebook: <a href="https://twitter.com/firasd/status/679620676286693377" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/firasd/status/679620676286693377</a><p><pre><code> Me: if you guys prevail in enabling zero-rating it even damages Facebook.
WeChat could be zero-rated & undermine WhatsApp
Them: so you're saying it could foster competition?
Me: it means anyone launching an app will have to cut a business deal with an ISP.
Completely subverts the value of the internet
</code></pre>
It's telling that people behind this program don't even understand how critical net neutrality was to Facebook's success and the health of the internet.
That suspension is for a bribe. Once that's in, expect it to be lifted. I'm not kidding. It's a core ethic by which government functions.
Submitted this to HN yesterday but it didn't get attention. This articles summarizes the issues well : <a href="https://medium.com/@amod/the-dangers-of-a-rogue-social-network-5563508cf752" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@amod/the-dangers-of-a-rogue-social-netwo...</a><p>Another note, Facebook is spending millions to lobby & market "Free Basics" in India.<p>More examples of their machinations, stressing on the word "accidental" :
<a href="http://recode.net/2015/12/21/facebook-accidentally-asks-u-s-users-to-support-free-basics-in-india/" rel="nofollow">http://recode.net/2015/12/21/facebook-accidentally-asks-u-s-...</a> .
Just because a person is poor does not mean he is stupid and cant decide for himself. Give poor people an opportunity to decide for themselves.<p>"Free basics" is free because someone is paying for it (in this case facebook). Banning it would not make normal internet available at same price point to poor people. The choice here for these poor people is between "free basics" and "no internet". I personally think they are better off with "free basics".<p>My driver has Whatsapp but no data connection as he does not want to pay (Rs 120) $2 per month extra. Instead he connects to wi-fi at my home whenever necessary. I think he will be better off with free basics.<p>In a moral standpoint asking telecom companies to forgo their profits to impose our own view of internet on them through government coercion seems like theft to me. Since spectrum is public property government could have imposed such a restriction while demanding bids for it but adding this constraint later seems like a robbery.
I think somehow Facebook wants to kill the competition , do not want to let innovate the world and want to rule on the internet. There is whole startups group which want to innovate and evolve but due to shitty ideas of Facebook and other operators this will change the whole game only because or their selfishness.
This is so ridiculous. Zuckerberg keeps suggesting that he is doing something good, which everyone can transparently see is just an effort to make Facebook more popular! How disconnected from reality is he?
Also to point out other things, closes systems like Playstore and Appstore actually help poor people get access to quality apps without worrying about frauds or malware.
Url changed from <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/free-basics-trai-suspension/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/free-basics-trai-suspension...</a>, which points to this.
Zukerberg cannot catch a break. Poor fellow, what kind of money does he make by connecting the lower economic spectrum of India? Is there some business tactics in there for growing the consumer base, sure, but honestly, this should be perhaps duty of Indian people, public or private. For all its imperfection internet.org is about reaching to poor people, who have NO ACCESS. Is a heavily subsidized but limited access EVIL than No ACCESS.