3 ms·

If what you are saying is true that sites that Indians want are not available on FB Basics, then FB won't get traction because it's not what Indian people want.

If what you are saying is true that sites that Indians want are not available on FB Basics, then FB won't get traction because it's not what Indian people want. Recall FB Basics is an on-ramp to give people a place to start so they can choose whether paying for Internet is something that's important for them. I say let the users decide with their feet and not some government bureaucrat. Also regarding what Google is doing, the key difference is scale. Google Wifi will be limited and reach relatively few. So I ask is it better to have a few people served with everything or is it better to give a little to everyone?

vertex-four 10y ago
It's generally not better to artificially prop up a single company, no.
- tim333 10y ago
  They wouldn't have had to prop up a single company. Just let any company provide whatever data services and let the users decide what they want to use. If the Indian government want to help their people they could focus more on stopping slavery rather than free internet access http://qz.com/695565/india-has-18-million-modern-slaves-at-least-five-times-more-than-any-other-country-in-the-world/ http://qz.com/695565/india-has-18-million-modern-slaves-at-l...
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    So - let me get this straight - if I want to provide VoIP services to India, I'd have to make deals with all my competitors - the telecoms companies - to do so? Where's their incentive to do that? What if I'm running a personal blog, or small informational site? It becomes even harder to do than today. The Internet, as it stands, with some hiccups, allows anyone to put up a website and have the globe be able to access it. If you have to make deals with ISPs to allow their customers to see your content, or never be seen because nobody will pay for "the real Internet" as long as they have Facebook and Wikipedia and Amazon... the result of that is that the Internet becomes a means of commerce, not a means of communication. Another system by which companies and Governments and the rich can market to people, but people are silenced from criticizing them and building alternatives. Stop twisting words - this isn't about "free Internet access", this is about free access to specific websites as chosen by the telecoms companies.
    - tim333 10y ago
      Ok - guess you have a point with that one.
    - mmmBacon 10y ago
      Nobody is restricting anything. You can still pay for Internet. It's only a free service tier. Don't forget that these are mostly 2G connections and so a full internet experience is likely to be a poor one. The limited services here are serving up lite versions of their products that should provide a better user experience on a 2G connection. Honestly this model is not too different from what we had here in the US prior to iPhone. My Verizon phone had a very limited amount of Internet connectivity that was mostly restricted to Verizon's walled garden. I could pay for more connectivity but it was not a good experience. Pages were slow loading and the whole thing was more frustrating than anything else.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        The issue is that it's a free service tier which ensures that certain companies will always have the upper hand - you can be guaranteed everyone can access Facebook, you can't be guaranteed everyone can access whatever the next thing is, so Facebook wins by default. Facebook also wins vs any criticism of it. You can offer a lite version of any service on the public Internet, you don't need a free service tier.
shubhamjain 10y ago
There is chance that people can get hooked on Facebook and may not miss real internet at all since they don't even know what real internet is. There is a distinct issue with "Free", something that SaaS businesses have often struck themselves with. Once people are hooked on to the "Free", they don't really want to upgrade. A majority would try workarounds, create multiple accounts but not upgrade to pay. I am very skeptical of a scenario in which people would find Internet important enough to upgrade to a paid plan. Quite likely, there would be a lot of free FB users who are content with limited Internet and that's the whole gist of the issue.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
If, because of this walled garden people are restricted from learning about the rest of the internet, it's not much of a plus.
onewaystreet 10y ago
It's easy to be against something when you already have that something. All of the activists that defeated Free Basics are not going without internet access today.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
It was Indians exercising their rights as people in a democracy that got Facebook's initiative banned. I'd say that's exactly how the world should work, instead of huge mega-corps being left to willy-nilly regulate access to one of the biggest revolutions in the past 30 years.
intended 10y ago
This argument is insidious. I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. This argument is insidious. I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. The internet is not Wikipedia, or amazon or facebook. It is the substrate that allowed those systems to exist! Its what allowed geocities, ask jeeves, craigslist, dwarf fortress, ebay, kickstarter, watsi, cnn.com, wikileaks, irctc.com, pets.com, Bloomberg, google, optimizely, twitter, reddit and so many more to exist. The internet is the system that enables any creator of content to access any consumer of content sans a gatekeeper. That is fundamentally what the internet is about. I feel as if I am tip toeing around defining walled gardens and open internet. FBasics is NOT the internet. It is categorically the opposite of what makes the internet work and why the internet is a force multiplier or worth passionately fighting for. Side note: The top bureaucrat in TRAI is actually assessing the inputs provided in a clear technical process. Theres bureaucrats who are close to telecom who are pushing for freebasics. So if you want to know the truth, then you should also be ready to denounce Freebasics wholesale, the telcos are pushing to get middle man status via bureaucrats who are in the rank and file. The NN people followed procedure, telcos are not. So its hard to take your particular accusations of Bureaucracy seriously

vertex-four 10y ago

It's generally not better to artificially prop up a single company, no.

tim333 10y ago
They wouldn't have had to prop up a single company. Just let any company provide whatever data services and let the users decide what they want to use. If the Indian government want to help their people they could focus more on stopping slavery rather than free internet access http://qz.com/695565/india-has-18-million-modern-slaves-at-least-five-times-more-than-any-other-country-in-the-world/ http://qz.com/695565/india-has-18-million-modern-slaves-at-l...
- vertex-four 10y ago
  So - let me get this straight - if I want to provide VoIP services to India, I'd have to make deals with all my competitors - the telecoms companies - to do so? Where's their incentive to do that? What if I'm running a personal blog, or small informational site? It becomes even harder to do than today. The Internet, as it stands, with some hiccups, allows anyone to put up a website and have the globe be able to access it. If you have to make deals with ISPs to allow their customers to see your content, or never be seen because nobody will pay for "the real Internet" as long as they have Facebook and Wikipedia and Amazon... the result of that is that the Internet becomes a means of commerce, not a means of communication. Another system by which companies and Governments and the rich can market to people, but people are silenced from criticizing them and building alternatives. Stop twisting words - this isn't about "free Internet access", this is about free access to specific websites as chosen by the telecoms companies.
  - tim333 10y ago
    Ok - guess you have a point with that one.
  - mmmBacon 10y ago
    Nobody is restricting anything. You can still pay for Internet. It's only a free service tier. Don't forget that these are mostly 2G connections and so a full internet experience is likely to be a poor one. The limited services here are serving up lite versions of their products that should provide a better user experience on a 2G connection. Honestly this model is not too different from what we had here in the US prior to iPhone. My Verizon phone had a very limited amount of Internet connectivity that was mostly restricted to Verizon's walled garden. I could pay for more connectivity but it was not a good experience. Pages were slow loading and the whole thing was more frustrating than anything else.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      The issue is that it's a free service tier which ensures that certain companies will always have the upper hand - you can be guaranteed everyone can access Facebook, you can't be guaranteed everyone can access whatever the next thing is, so Facebook wins by default. Facebook also wins vs any criticism of it. You can offer a lite version of any service on the public Internet, you don't need a free service tier.

shubhamjain 10y ago

There is chance that people can get hooked on Facebook and may not miss real internet at all since they don't even know what real internet is. There is a distinct issue with "Free", something that SaaS businesses have often struck themselves with. Once people are hooked on to the "Free", they don't really want to upgrade. A majority would try workarounds, create multiple accounts but not upgrade to pay. I am very skeptical of a scenario in which people would find Internet important enough to upgrade to a paid plan. Quite likely, there would be a lot of free FB users who are content with limited Internet and that's the whole gist of the issue.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

If, because of this walled garden people are restricted from learning about the rest of the internet, it's not much of a plus.

onewaystreet 10y ago

It's easy to be against something when you already have that something. All of the activists that defeated Free Basics are not going without internet access today.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

It was Indians exercising their rights as people in a democracy that got Facebook's initiative banned. I'd say that's exactly how the world should work, instead of huge mega-corps being left to willy-nilly regulate access to one of the biggest revolutions in the past 30 years.

intended 10y ago

This argument is insidious. I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. This argument is insidious. I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. The internet is not Wikipedia, or amazon or facebook. It is the substrate that allowed those systems to exist! Its what allowed geocities, ask jeeves, craigslist, dwarf fortress, ebay, kickstarter, watsi, cnn.com, wikileaks, irctc.com, pets.com, Bloomberg, google, optimizely, twitter, reddit and so many more to exist. The internet is the system that enables any creator of content to access any consumer of content sans a gatekeeper. That is fundamentally what the internet is about. I feel as if I am tip toeing around defining walled gardens and open internet. FBasics is NOT the internet. It is categorically the opposite of what makes the internet work and why the internet is a force multiplier or worth passionately fighting for. Side note: The top bureaucrat in TRAI is actually assessing the inputs provided in a clear technical process. Theres bureaucrats who are close to telecom who are pushing for freebasics. So if you want to know the truth, then you should also be ready to denounce Freebasics wholesale, the telcos are pushing to get middle man status via bureaucrats who are in the rank and file. The NN people followed procedure, telcos are not. So its hard to take your particular accusations of Bureaucracy seriously