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Facebook Free basics also suffers the Tom's Shoes problem [1] - basically by giving away the free service in a developing country, it kills the local economy fo
by bduerst 7y ago
Facebook Free basics also suffers the Tom's Shoes problem [1] - basically by giving away the free service in a developing country, it kills the local economy for the same service and sets it back, not forwards. By saturating the ISP market, Facebook is hindering ISP development in Brazil.
This would be less of a problem if Facebook offered net neutral internet service but they're not - FB is only offering free access to theirs and a handful of partners websites. It's charity message of bringing "free internet to people who don't have it" is a red herring to the problems it presents.
[1] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/one-one-business-model-social-impact-avoiding-unintended-consequences/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/one-one-business...
- z3t4 7y agoIt's probably Hanlon's razor. But if FB have altruistic motives they should only offer their service where no commercial alternatives exist.
- zrobotics 7y agoIf they were motivated by altruism, wouldn't they offer full web access instead of limiting it to Facebook & Wikipedia? What motivates them is finding their next billion users in any way possible.
- Crosseye_Jack 7y agoBut wouldn’t that also be a factor for an service starting up in a region after Facebook enters. Forgetting that FB is so large that starting a completing service is a hard enough battle by itself, now you got to sign a deal to get at least a low rate if not 0 rate deal with the cell providers.