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as somebody who hasn't been following this at all, can someone please explain all of the hostility toward fb? I get that what fb is offering is far from ideal,
by jrbapna 11y ago
as somebody who hasn't been following this at all, can someone please explain all of the hostility toward fb? I get that what fb is offering is far from ideal, but isn't it slightly better than the status quo of no internet for a large amount of people? and as Facebook is a business, not a charity, shouldn't they be able to recoup money on their investment? I imagine giving free internet access, albeit limited, to the world's soon to be largest population doesn't come cheap
- jace 11y agoFacebook isn't paying for any of it (apart from the developer screening process and proxy server). They expect their telco partners to bear the expenses, who naturally have no expectation of recovering it from the poor who can't afford to pay, and so don't bother to market the service to them. The telcos market "Free Internet" (and after some backlash "Free Facebook") to urban youth to lure them away from other telcos. FB's own data says 80% of users are switchers, not the newly connected. Facebook's stated intent is one thing, what's actually happening on the ground is something else.