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My main concern with Free Basics is that it's literally a reinvention of AOL, using a different shade of blue. Moreover, I find it extremely hypocritical of Ma

My main concern with Free Basics is that it's literally a reinvention of AOL, using a different shade of blue. Moreover, I find it extremely hypocritical of Mark Zuckerberg to push a system that would have prevent his own company from becoming as big as it has. Put another way, he would be screaming bloody murder if it was Google offering Free Basics, and forcing everybody to access the web through Google+.

brownbat 11y ago
Felt like I heard the Facebook/AOL comparison before... turns out it pops up in a lot of places: Kottke, 2007: http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol Marketing tech blog, 2009: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ Stowe Boyd, 2010: http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of-facebook-cringely-on http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of... PC Mag, 2010: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp The Verge, 2015: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new... NY Mag, 2015: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the-new-aol.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the...
cm2187 11y ago
But a free AOL. Net neutrality makes sense when you pay for it. When someone offers you a free service it is hard to complain about the quality. You might refuse to call it "charity" but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.
- nabla9 11y ago
  It's not so simple. If the company who has monopoly power[1] provides free services, or if the free service can be used to gain monopoly power, there is possibility for market failure. If it would be OK to do anything as long as the service is free, it would make sense for Chinese government & Baidu & Huawei consortium to provide High Quality Free Basics for every American who wants it. --- [1] Remainder to avoid fruitless arguments: monopoly power ≠ monopoly http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_power.html http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_po...
  - cm2187 11y ago
    But you can say the same of any free service. What about free news website, free email services, etc? They all could (and do) drive competition out of business. But they provide a service which is just good enough for most people. And if people want something better they will pay a premium for it (like access to The Economist website). I am sure that most Indians who have the means to pay for broadband will not want to be restricted to that facebook service. In fact the more restrictive facebook makes it, the more likely it will not prevent competition.
  - tim333 11y ago
    But it's not much of a monopoly and though I'm not American I'd have no problem with the Chinese government giving me the option of say free commie propaganda basics. I probably wouldn't use if but it would be fine to have the option.
- kartickv 11y ago
  But who's paying for the bits to be transferred? Neither the user nor the site. The ISP is paying for it themselves. And where do they get the money? From users paying for access to other sites. So, ISPs are taking the money from (users paying for) site A, and using that to subsidise site B. This is a blatant net neutrality violation. A neutral way of doing this is to offer the site the option of paying on behalf of the user, at the same rate the user pays. Offer the same option to all sites at the same price and subject to the same terms. Allow this to be resold, so that CDN-like companies can spring up that allow a company to reach all users in India (or the world) without having to sign up with multiple ISPs. That will be a level playing field.
- quanticle 11y ago
  There are two inaccuracies in that statement. First, Free Basics will not be free, over the long term. Facebook has said that their long-term plan for Free Basics includes monetization of some sort. Presumably, it'll be a combination of advertising and collecting commissions for e-commerce transactions made via Facebook. Second, and more importantly, even if Free Basics were completely free, it'd still be wrong. Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer for free with Windows. They did not do this as an altruistic gesture. They did it to crush Netscape, which was challenging their software monopoly on the desktop. Facebook is doing exactly the same thing with Free Basics. This is not an altruistic gesture by Facebook, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg writes in his op-ed. This is a calculated move to establish a Facebook monopoly over user data in the largest untapped Internet market in the world. Facebook, with Free Basics, is ensuring that no other social network or messaging platform can challenge it in India. The technology community rightly applauded the US Department of Justice when it initiated anti-trust actions against Microsoft. We should applaud the Indian technology community for standing up and forcing the government of India to take a hard look at the long term consequences of a Facebook monopoly.
- bigbugbag 11y ago
  There's nothing free about facebook, either as freedom nor free beer. Not paying for it just mean, you're the product being sold.

brownbat 11y ago

Felt like I heard the Facebook/AOL comparison before... turns out it pops up in a lot of places: Kottke, 2007: http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol Marketing tech blog, 2009: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ Stowe Boyd, 2010: http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of-facebook-cringely-on http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of... PC Mag, 2010: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp The Verge, 2015: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new... NY Mag, 2015: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the-new-aol.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the...

cm2187 11y ago

But a free AOL. Net neutrality makes sense when you pay for it. When someone offers you a free service it is hard to complain about the quality. You might refuse to call it "charity" but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

nabla9 11y ago
It's not so simple. If the company who has monopoly power[1] provides free services, or if the free service can be used to gain monopoly power, there is possibility for market failure. If it would be OK to do anything as long as the service is free, it would make sense for Chinese government & Baidu & Huawei consortium to provide High Quality Free Basics for every American who wants it. --- [1] Remainder to avoid fruitless arguments: monopoly power ≠ monopoly http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_power.html http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_po...
- cm2187 11y ago
  But you can say the same of any free service. What about free news website, free email services, etc? They all could (and do) drive competition out of business. But they provide a service which is just good enough for most people. And if people want something better they will pay a premium for it (like access to The Economist website). I am sure that most Indians who have the means to pay for broadband will not want to be restricted to that facebook service. In fact the more restrictive facebook makes it, the more likely it will not prevent competition.
- tim333 11y ago
  But it's not much of a monopoly and though I'm not American I'd have no problem with the Chinese government giving me the option of say free commie propaganda basics. I probably wouldn't use if but it would be fine to have the option.
kartickv 11y ago
But who's paying for the bits to be transferred? Neither the user nor the site. The ISP is paying for it themselves. And where do they get the money? From users paying for access to other sites. So, ISPs are taking the money from (users paying for) site A, and using that to subsidise site B. This is a blatant net neutrality violation. A neutral way of doing this is to offer the site the option of paying on behalf of the user, at the same rate the user pays. Offer the same option to all sites at the same price and subject to the same terms. Allow this to be resold, so that CDN-like companies can spring up that allow a company to reach all users in India (or the world) without having to sign up with multiple ISPs. That will be a level playing field.
quanticle 11y ago
There are two inaccuracies in that statement. First, Free Basics will not be free, over the long term. Facebook has said that their long-term plan for Free Basics includes monetization of some sort. Presumably, it'll be a combination of advertising and collecting commissions for e-commerce transactions made via Facebook. Second, and more importantly, even if Free Basics were completely free, it'd still be wrong. Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer for free with Windows. They did not do this as an altruistic gesture. They did it to crush Netscape, which was challenging their software monopoly on the desktop. Facebook is doing exactly the same thing with Free Basics. This is not an altruistic gesture by Facebook, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg writes in his op-ed. This is a calculated move to establish a Facebook monopoly over user data in the largest untapped Internet market in the world. Facebook, with Free Basics, is ensuring that no other social network or messaging platform can challenge it in India. The technology community rightly applauded the US Department of Justice when it initiated anti-trust actions against Microsoft. We should applaud the Indian technology community for standing up and forcing the government of India to take a hard look at the long term consequences of a Facebook monopoly.
bigbugbag 11y ago
There's nothing free about facebook, either as freedom nor free beer. Not paying for it just mean, you're the product being sold.