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Facebook's approach is to work with the telecoms in order to have them offer a subset of the internet for free on mobile devices (notably Facebook, Wikipedia an

Facebook's approach is to work with the telecoms in order to have them offer a subset of the internet for free on mobile devices (notably Facebook, Wikipedia and some others). Part of this is that people who have never been online before don't understand the value of getting online. This allows them to have some access in order to better understand the value. The model is a bit like the old shareware model DOOM used - give a few levels for free and if they like it they can pay for the rest. The backlash was the argument that Zuckerberg was only giving access to a few websites (mostly Facebook) in order to get more control of the internet without following net neutrality. To me this seems to be an oversimplified and overly pessimistic view of what happened. The telecoms are not going to just give free access of the entire web to everyone, but by giving access to some valuable websites for free people may start to see the value and demand better infrastructure/start paying for mobile internet. I think Zuckerberg is being earnest here and not attempting to manipulate people for some malicious power grab - this seemed like a good approach (unfortunately the PR fallout was not). In comparison it looks like google is just setting up free wifi hotspots which requires you to go to one in order to use it and is generally a lot less useful.

tensor 10y ago
Having access to the entire internet sounds a whole lot more useful than access to a subset.
- fossuser 10y ago
  Not if you have to go ten miles and stand by the router in order to get it. Then it's really a comparison between no internet or a subset.
  - electriclove 10y ago
    Facebook could have done both (access to everything and from anywhere) but they didn't. That's their mistake...
    - fossuser 10y ago
      To clarify - convincing telecoms to offer a subset of the Internet for free on mobile devices (because it will lead to more customers) is different from telling the telecoms that they should give away complete access for free. The second one isn't and never has been a realistic option.
      - Manishearth 10y ago
        Sure it has, just make the connection slow (but usable). Enough people will get hooked and want faster Internet. Aircel did this in India. There were some other programs that did similar things and were successful IIRC.
        fossuser 10y ago
        That's a good point. I wonder what the conversion rates would be comparing high speed unlimited access to a subset vs. low speed limited access to the entire network. Would be interesting to see what people preferred if both had happened.
      - aravindet 10y ago
        Wrong, after differential pricing was banned, at least two Indian telecom operators began offering free Internet access (with a data cap and speed limit, but no restrictions on which websites you can visit). Aircel is one, I forgot the other.
    - morgante 10y ago
      Why do you think they ever could have done that? Telecoms aren't giving out free internet access out of the goodness of their heart.
    - throwaway1989 10y ago
      Why would you expect them or anyone to do that? Facebook is not a charity.
      - 10y ago
  - happyslobro 10y ago
    This is India we're talking about, they'll figure something out. Might not be something cool like point to point IR links, maybe more like kids on bikes with a basket full of internet on HDDs.
    - pm90 10y ago
      This comment made me laugh, but the sentiment is actually painfully accurate. There is an actual term for it: 'Jugaad' [0]; resourcefully making use of anything available to get what you want. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
parennoob 10y ago
> The backlash was the argument that Zuckerberg was only giving access to a few websites (mostly Facebook) in order to get more control of the internet without following net neutrality. To me this seems to be an oversimplified and overly pessimistic view of what happened I'm Indian – and if you are someone here who ordinarily can't afford any sort of Internet access, Facebook and the other e-commerce websites that were on the Free Basics platform weren't exactly the first things you'd want to access. They made zero effort to make things like government websites, local newspapers, utility websites etc. accessible through this platform. If they had done so, I bet they would have had a lot more support from the intended target audience of this platform. Please note that they also were MITMing people's traffic using a dual-certificate model. [1] "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people." This was part of the reason people were more pessimistic about it and viewed it as a way for Facebook to cheaply acquire a lot more users and a ton of free user data about them. Google on the other hand seems to be basically giving unrestricted access, albeit at specific spots to whatever people want to access, which is (in my opinion) way better than the sort of AOL-style walled garden Facebook was trying to create in India. [1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t...
- fossuser 10y ago
  Government website access sounds like one of those things that's nice in theory, but in practice something people don't really use that often and don't care about that much. The websites in Free Basics are websites that many people use all of the time. Though including utility type sites may have been the right call from a marketing perspective. Not sure what the reasons were behind the MiTM - possible it was to prevent people using Free Basics to access everything by spoofing the domains and encrypting the traffic? Not everything is a conspiracy. Definitely agree that access to everything is better, but wifi hotspots are nothing new and require you to actually go to them. Plus if you had Free Basics you could still use the wifi hotspots anyway - now those people have nothing.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
vram22 10y ago
>Part of this is that people who have never been online before don't understand the value of getting online. Yes, and therefore they will understand even less, the value of the whole Internet as opposed to selected sites. So it is misleading. >The telecoms are not going to just give free access of the entire web to everyone, but by giving access to some valuable websites for free people may start to see the value and demand better infrastructure/start paying for mobile internet. I think Zuckerberg is being earnest here and not attempting to manipulate people for some malicious power grab - this seemed like a good approach (unfortunately the PR fallout was not). This whole thing (internet.org / Free Basics) was discussed to death in the Indian tech and even mainstream media, and also a good amount on HN (and I'm sure plenty of other general Internet discussion sites) when the topic was more current. The arguments of the people (many Indian) objecting to it boiled down to one thing: the telecoms / FB can easily give access to the whole Internet, not just their selected sites, but for a limited amount of bandwidth per month, e.g. 500 MB or 1 GB, for the same cost as their original plan, which discriminated against all other sites than their selected ones. Then why did they not try to do that? As I understand it, that is the gist of the argument against internet.org.

tensor 10y ago

Having access to the entire internet sounds a whole lot more useful than access to a subset.

fossuser 10y ago
Not if you have to go ten miles and stand by the router in order to get it. Then it's really a comparison between no internet or a subset.
- electriclove 10y ago
  Facebook could have done both (access to everything and from anywhere) but they didn't. That's their mistake...
  - fossuser 10y ago
    To clarify - convincing telecoms to offer a subset of the Internet for free on mobile devices (because it will lead to more customers) is different from telling the telecoms that they should give away complete access for free. The second one isn't and never has been a realistic option.
    - Manishearth 10y ago
      Sure it has, just make the connection slow (but usable). Enough people will get hooked and want faster Internet. Aircel did this in India. There were some other programs that did similar things and were successful IIRC.
      - fossuser 10y ago
        That's a good point. I wonder what the conversion rates would be comparing high speed unlimited access to a subset vs. low speed limited access to the entire network. Would be interesting to see what people preferred if both had happened.
    - aravindet 10y ago
      Wrong, after differential pricing was banned, at least two Indian telecom operators began offering free Internet access (with a data cap and speed limit, but no restrictions on which websites you can visit). Aircel is one, I forgot the other.
  - morgante 10y ago
    Why do you think they ever could have done that? Telecoms aren't giving out free internet access out of the goodness of their heart.
  - throwaway1989 10y ago
    Why would you expect them or anyone to do that? Facebook is not a charity.
    - 10y ago
- happyslobro 10y ago
  This is India we're talking about, they'll figure something out. Might not be something cool like point to point IR links, maybe more like kids on bikes with a basket full of internet on HDDs.
  - pm90 10y ago
    This comment made me laugh, but the sentiment is actually painfully accurate. There is an actual term for it: 'Jugaad' [0]; resourcefully making use of anything available to get what you want. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad

parennoob 10y ago

> The backlash was the argument that Zuckerberg was only giving access to a few websites (mostly Facebook) in order to get more control of the internet without following net neutrality. To me this seems to be an oversimplified and overly pessimistic view of what happened I'm Indian – and if you are someone here who ordinarily can't afford any sort of Internet access, Facebook and the other e-commerce websites that were on the Free Basics platform weren't exactly the first things you'd want to access. They made zero effort to make things like government websites, local newspapers, utility websites etc. accessible through this platform. If they had done so, I bet they would have had a lot more support from the intended target audience of this platform. Please note that they also were MITMing people's traffic using a dual-certificate model. [1] "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people." This was part of the reason people were more pessimistic about it and viewed it as a way for Facebook to cheaply acquire a lot more users and a ton of free user data about them. Google on the other hand seems to be basically giving unrestricted access, albeit at specific spots to whatever people want to access, which is (in my opinion) way better than the sort of AOL-style walled garden Facebook was trying to create in India. [1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t...

fossuser 10y ago
Government website access sounds like one of those things that's nice in theory, but in practice something people don't really use that often and don't care about that much. The websites in Free Basics are websites that many people use all of the time. Though including utility type sites may have been the right call from a marketing perspective. Not sure what the reasons were behind the MiTM - possible it was to prevent people using Free Basics to access everything by spoofing the domains and encrypting the traffic? Not everything is a conspiracy. Definitely agree that access to everything is better, but wifi hotspots are nothing new and require you to actually go to them. Plus if you had Free Basics you could still use the wifi hotspots anyway - now those people have nothing.
0xmohit 10y ago

vram22 10y ago

>Part of this is that people who have never been online before don't understand the value of getting online. Yes, and therefore they will understand even less, the value of the whole Internet as opposed to selected sites. So it is misleading. >The telecoms are not going to just give free access of the entire web to everyone, but by giving access to some valuable websites for free people may start to see the value and demand better infrastructure/start paying for mobile internet. I think Zuckerberg is being earnest here and not attempting to manipulate people for some malicious power grab - this seemed like a good approach (unfortunately the PR fallout was not). This whole thing (internet.org / Free Basics) was discussed to death in the Indian tech and even mainstream media, and also a good amount on HN (and I'm sure plenty of other general Internet discussion sites) when the topic was more current. The arguments of the people (many Indian) objecting to it boiled down to one thing: the telecoms / FB can easily give access to the whole Internet, not just their selected sites, but for a limited amount of bandwidth per month, e.g. 500 MB or 1 GB, for the same cost as their original plan, which discriminated against all other sites than their selected ones. Then why did they not try to do that? As I understand it, that is the gist of the argument against internet.org.