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On Free Basics: "We’ve learned a lot about how we need to interact with governments and the political system and regulators, and build support in order to have
by firasd 10y ago
On Free Basics: "We’ve learned a lot about how we need to interact with governments and the political system and regulators, and build support in order to have these things work. And I think we’ll take those lessons forward on the future work we’re doing in Free Basics, which by the way is continuing to roll out around the world. One day, once we’ve shown that it’s a successful program around the world, I hope that we’ll get another chance to come back to India and offer it there, too."
Come on, Mark... your stubbornness sometimes works well in making product decisions, but isn't working well in this strategic context. Free Basics rolled out in all these other countries by interacting with 'the political system', regulators, governments (not to mention telecoms.) But it was grassroots activists who stopped you in India. And you still haven't learned that what we want is not better management of regulators, but net neutrality. It blows my mind.
It is exhausting enough to have to oppose telecom networks and other industries in their efforts to turn the Internet into Cable TV (by creating different tiers and segments of the internet), and meanwhile every few months Mark wants to lunge into the conversation with this nonsense. Facebook should be helping preserve net neutrality worldwide, not putting their energy and resources into undermining it.
India wants the same Internet that Mark used to create Facebook in his Harvard dorm room. Accept nothing less.
- blowski 10y agoWhile I want them to, I don't know why they should. What's in it for them?
- firasd 10y agoMost U.S. tech companies were strong proponents of the FCC's net neutrality regulations because they don't want telecom networks to intervene between them and their users by segmenting access based on pricing or speed. Although it seems once you are as successful as Facebook (and now, Netflix) you start thinking less of "what if the ISP wants to rip me off by differentiating access to my app?" and more like "how can I partner with the ISP to get an advantage by differentiating access to my app?"
- badlucklottery 10y agoThey gotta pull that ladder up behind them. If they don't they might actually have to innovate and compete in the future.
- mikeash 10y agoIt'll make the world a better place. Normally that would be a bad argument, but for someone who has pledged 99% of his wealth to charity it might actually be on point.
- randomgyatwork 10y agoThat maybe true, and Gates seems to be doing some good stuff. But these mega-capitalists are generally destroying the world with their right hands and trying to clean it up with the left.
- blowski 10y agoBetter than not trying to clean it up I suppose. Besides, I don't believe they are destroying the world. Changing it, yes.
- izendejas 10y agoI wish people understood you just can't go into a foreign country and do whatever the hell you want. I think it comes down to how one measures progress. Sometimes you have to work with corrupt governments and monopolies because the alternative is really null. I'd much rather give a lot of people access to basic services than no access at all--in fact, one hypothesis is that people will eventually be able to afford standard internet service (censored or not). Eventually, more informed citizens will demand better regulations and more accountability from said corrupt organizations. We can't do it for them, they need to do it but they must first be empowered. Hell, a lot of the people who will benefit could care less about net neutrality when they're starving and have very few opportunities! It's the startup way--minus the complete disruption, isn't it? MVP, then iterate, iterate... A complete disruption is just laughably impractical. Disclaimer: I used to work at Facebook, but these opinions are entirely my own.
- mpbm 10y ago<I wish people understood you just can't go into a foreign country and do whatever the hell you want.> I think the MNCs (multi-national corporations), particularly the tech MNC's, don't give a shit about countries. And why should they? The cyberspace domain doesn't consider things like borders or nationalities first-class citizens. They're just trivia. On the internet, everyone is a few milliseconds away. The awkward part is that most of the development of internet-based tech is happening in the West, so when it's offered to the world it looks an awful lot like Western governments intruding, since the MNC's default is their home country's laws.
- stcredzero 10y agoAnd you still haven't learned that what we want is not better management of regulators, but net neutrality. It blows my mind. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair
- dharmach 10y agoControl is power. Google controls what people can find on the web. Facebook wants to control what people can access on the web.
- na85 10y ago>And you still haven't learned that what we want is not better management of regulators, but net neutrality. He's not a moron. He absolutely knows this is what we want. He just doesn't care, because he's rich enough from selling our privacy to buy all the mansions around his to protect his privacy. A whole generation of poor people in India and elsewhere growing up believing that Free Basics === The Internet? Sounds like the sort of captive audience most tech companies can only dream of.