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Oh come on, this is a guy who poorly disguises a press release about a restructuring of his finances as a letter to his daughter. It's much more likely that Zu

by avar 11y ago

Oh come on, this is a guy who poorly disguises a press release about a restructuring of his finances as a letter to his daughter. It's much more likely that Zuckerberg realizes his company is overvalued, and that he needs to acquire a massive amount of users to make up for that gap. Subsidizing a walled-garden version of the Internet where users can only use Facebook in developing countries makes strategic sense for the company. Facebook doesn't care about "free internet", they care about building their business, and this "free basics" program makes that patently obvious. I don't blame them or necessarily think it's a bad thing , but the propaganda associated with it is ridiculous.

tylermauthe 11y ago
How is not necessarily a bad thing? In what way could it possibly be a good thing for anybody outside of Facebook?
- avar 11y ago
  There are some people who are using "free basics" now that wouldn't have any Internet access without it. Now, you could argue and I'd probably agree with you that it's bad in the long term, creates a distorted market etc. But if a foreign company offers a net subsidy to access a part of the Internet shouldn't that drive down the price of Internet access for everyone? I.e. you could access "free basics" and also have a complimentary Internet subscription that could be offered at a lower price since your Facebook traffic would be subsidized.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    The whole "helping the poor" is a red herring. Facebook could just as easily offer a net neutral internet, but they're not - that's what people are upset about.
- hackinthebochs 11y ago
  In the scenario of free walled-garden internet access vs. no access, how can you justify claiming its not a good thing?
  - abhaga 11y ago
    Because it is not a static scenario. Internet users in India grew by ~30% over last one year itself and that growth is not slowing down. And FreeBasics is not limited to people coming on the internet for the first time.
    - mkagenius 11y ago
      free basics is doing that at a rate of 50% per month. (according to them) i doubt people would want to shift to free basics from a full internet and if they do then that's what they like, its their choice. We should continue using normal broadband. Now you can argue that telcos will then overcharge for normal broadband, but who knows, they might not and even if they do then TRAI can send them a notice to not do that, and they will stop like they did with the "fast lane" thingy.
      - jace 11y ago
        That stat is misleading when you compare percentages against raw figures: 1 million: Free Basics users in India in 2015 (source: FB press release) 5.8 million: Data users acquired by Reliance, FB's sole partner in India, in 2015 (source: IAMAI) 109 million: Data users acquired by all telcos in India in 2015 (Sep 2014-Sep 2015, source: same IAMAI report) So if Free Basics converted 50% of their users to the full Internet, that's about 500k users, or less than 0.5% of the industry's success rate. Asking for dangerous policy exceptions because your flawed scheme has an actual success rate of 0.5% and presenting this as 50% is disingenuous at best.
      - nileshtrivedi 11y ago
        50% faster conversion to full, paid Internet. Clearly, these users CAN afford the Internet, hence they are NOT the poor. In fact, 80% of FreeBasics users are EXISTING Internet users, not NEW.
gauravagarwalr 11y ago
What I miss from the first line of your response is a source.
- avar 11y ago
  https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-our-daughter/10153375081581634 https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-o...
rms_returns 11y ago
I'm from India and the conditions of many farmers is pathetic here, poverty isn't a word enough to describe their condition. They are illiterate, exploited by higher-ups in the society and struggle to get even basic necessities in life. Conditions are so gloomy that on average, one farmer commits suicide every thirty minutes in this country! And these are the people whom Zuckerberg is targeting for the FreeBasics free internet program. Maybe, he thinks that socializing on FB or performing a quick google search on farming methods is going to help them, but that is far from reality and just fascinating thinking. All I know is that the millions that Mr. ZUckerberg spent on displaying FreeBasics ads in the Indian newspapers and TV channels would have been much better spent by actually donating that money to the farmers he intends to help.
- dingo_bat 11y ago
  >donating that money to the farmers he intends to help. Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. I think Zuckerberg is doing what he thinks is good, and I don't think free internet to farmers will do any bad. It might help only a few and by a little amount, but that is still better than nothing. Who are we to decide how somebody else organizes their charity?
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    > Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. What? The debate about the benefits of direct cash-transfers vs. more managed forms of aid is alive and well in 2015.
    - dingo_bat 11y ago
      Do you think donating some money to farmers is going to help in any way? The government has been doing that for a long time (through subsidies and minimum purchase prices), at a much larger scale than any single person is capable of. And it hasn't improved anything much. I think it is clear that the only way to improve conditions is to enable farmers to convert their business into a sustainable one. And for that, cheap/free internet access could prove to be the turnaround factor.

by avar 11y ago

tylermauthe 11y ago

How is not necessarily a bad thing? In what way could it possibly be a good thing for anybody outside of Facebook?

avar 11y ago
There are some people who are using "free basics" now that wouldn't have any Internet access without it. Now, you could argue and I'd probably agree with you that it's bad in the long term, creates a distorted market etc. But if a foreign company offers a net subsidy to access a part of the Internet shouldn't that drive down the price of Internet access for everyone? I.e. you could access "free basics" and also have a complimentary Internet subscription that could be offered at a lower price since your Facebook traffic would be subsidized.
- bduerst 11y ago
  The whole "helping the poor" is a red herring. Facebook could just as easily offer a net neutral internet, but they're not - that's what people are upset about.
hackinthebochs 11y ago
In the scenario of free walled-garden internet access vs. no access, how can you justify claiming its not a good thing?
- abhaga 11y ago
  Because it is not a static scenario. Internet users in India grew by ~30% over last one year itself and that growth is not slowing down. And FreeBasics is not limited to people coming on the internet for the first time.
  - mkagenius 11y ago
    free basics is doing that at a rate of 50% per month. (according to them) i doubt people would want to shift to free basics from a full internet and if they do then that's what they like, its their choice. We should continue using normal broadband. Now you can argue that telcos will then overcharge for normal broadband, but who knows, they might not and even if they do then TRAI can send them a notice to not do that, and they will stop like they did with the "fast lane" thingy.
    - jace 11y ago
      That stat is misleading when you compare percentages against raw figures: 1 million: Free Basics users in India in 2015 (source: FB press release) 5.8 million: Data users acquired by Reliance, FB's sole partner in India, in 2015 (source: IAMAI) 109 million: Data users acquired by all telcos in India in 2015 (Sep 2014-Sep 2015, source: same IAMAI report) So if Free Basics converted 50% of their users to the full Internet, that's about 500k users, or less than 0.5% of the industry's success rate. Asking for dangerous policy exceptions because your flawed scheme has an actual success rate of 0.5% and presenting this as 50% is disingenuous at best.
    - nileshtrivedi 11y ago
      50% faster conversion to full, paid Internet. Clearly, these users CAN afford the Internet, hence they are NOT the poor. In fact, 80% of FreeBasics users are EXISTING Internet users, not NEW.

gauravagarwalr 11y ago

What I miss from the first line of your response is a source.

avar 11y ago
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-our-daughter/10153375081581634 https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-o...

rms_returns 11y ago

I'm from India and the conditions of many farmers is pathetic here, poverty isn't a word enough to describe their condition. They are illiterate, exploited by higher-ups in the society and struggle to get even basic necessities in life. Conditions are so gloomy that on average, one farmer commits suicide every thirty minutes in this country! And these are the people whom Zuckerberg is targeting for the FreeBasics free internet program. Maybe, he thinks that socializing on FB or performing a quick google search on farming methods is going to help them, but that is far from reality and just fascinating thinking. All I know is that the millions that Mr. ZUckerberg spent on displaying FreeBasics ads in the Indian newspapers and TV channels would have been much better spent by actually donating that money to the farmers he intends to help.

dingo_bat 11y ago
>donating that money to the farmers he intends to help. Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. I think Zuckerberg is doing what he thinks is good, and I don't think free internet to farmers will do any bad. It might help only a few and by a little amount, but that is still better than nothing. Who are we to decide how somebody else organizes their charity?
- RodericDay 11y ago
  > Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. What? The debate about the benefits of direct cash-transfers vs. more managed forms of aid is alive and well in 2015.
  - dingo_bat 11y ago
    Do you think donating some money to farmers is going to help in any way? The government has been doing that for a long time (through subsidies and minimum purchase prices), at a much larger scale than any single person is capable of. And it hasn't improved anything much. I think it is clear that the only way to improve conditions is to enable farmers to convert their business into a sustainable one. And for that, cheap/free internet access could prove to be the turnaround factor.