Earnest question: on the presumption that Free Basics (FB) will become popular if launched, trying to shoot it down means that many people (mostly poor) will not get access to the internet. How does one address this? Now, this activism can do two things: 1. Force FB's hand to make it truly open, 2. Delay universal access by regulation that prevents FB from starting up. If the result turns out to be the former, well and good. If the latter ends up happening, many people will be deprived of internet access and the opportunities for social and economic growth that come with it.<p>A corporation is well ahead of the rest of the community in its ability to deliver quasi-philanthropic internet to the poor. I wish more of these articles mentioned alternatives (any solutions from FOSS, for example or free 2G and older network services?)
Facebook!=the Internet. If it's only Facebook and friends, this is not at all anything like the Internet. It's a closed platform, like 25 years ago, with walled gardens.<p>So people need to stop saying those criticising Free Basic are in favor of depriving poor people from the Internet.<p>Quite honestly this Free Basic thing is so absurd to me on the face of it I hope Facebook doesn't modify it as a result of all the increasing criticism. Then it can just face plant, which is where it ought to end up.<p>Even my ISP doesn't MITM my 443 connections to other services.
This isn't quite hitting the core of the problem. If someone only has Facebook's Free Basics, then they can't conduct business on the Internet with anyone who hasn't partnered with Facebook. Not reading content, not publishing content, not downloading apps, not shopping, not email. They can only do these things if they pay a telecom for real internet access. From a user's perspective, that's still an improvement, because they would've had to pay for real internet access and now they have the option of maybe not.<p>But what if you want to conduct business with those people who only have Free Basics? Then Facebook has a veto over your ability to do so. They will make you partner with them, jump through hoops, and maybe pay them money. If you're thinking of competing with them, they can destroy your business with a flick of a switch. It's a power that begs to be abused. Free Basics isn't bad for users, it's bad for <i>everyone else</i>.
I can't say how this turns out, but it makes me happy to see the debate this is generating. A lot of people who have never heard of net neutrality are now hearing and thinking about it. That's a definite positive for India and and open internet.
Shouldn't a service like this use a small whitelist of sites that it provides for free (Google maps, Wikipedia, ...) and use https throughout rather than not at all? I completely understand if some services are easier to provide for free, e.g. static/cachable content that can be cached close to the users.<p>Also if I were Facebook I'd remove any and all Facebook services, just to prove I'm being altruistic and not trying to lock in third world users to my ads...<p>Really if fb can't do this then some nonprofit should.<p>This looks a lot like when the US got internet access, with AoL trying to be a quasi-internet within internet. I suppose you can argue "it worked" because it connected lots of households and now they have proper Internet, but the European model where governments subsidized massive backbones and municipalities created last-mile networks making "proper" internet available straight away looks more attractive in retrospect. Realistically, poor countries will have to follow the US model...
"... by throwing in short-sighted plans, you are preventing the Government and the market from thinking up plans for giving permanent access to the full Internet for these poor."<p>I am on the fence on whether to support Free Basics or not, but the scale tilts here for me towards Free Basics. This response is like saying, "No, don't help them - you'll prevent us from helping them at some point in the future." The poor person in the village, on the street, shouldn't have to wait five more years for the internet(in whatever form) when a solution (though partial) is available now. Suppose the government does introduce a proper 'Free Internet' plan two years later. I don't think anything would stop them from switching from the biased Free Basics to the better plans.
"Wow, this file is really popular! Some tools might be unavailable until the crowd clears."<p>What resource at Google Docs doesn't scale?