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> The network would be anonymous, with no ads, no cookies, etc. Let me see if I understand-- Google (dude's employer) was just going to gift internet to the en

> The network would be anonymous, with no ads, no cookies, etc. Let me see if I understand-- Google (dude's employer) was just going to gift internet to the entire city of San Francisco, starting with the poor, 100% free in perpetuity, and somehow promise to never use the data for any advertising purposes whatsoever? Also-- at this moment my comment is the only one showing even mild skepticism wrt the veracity of this tweet. Good times. Edit: clarification

dcow 6y ago
How is this different from any other internet provider? If the users go to google.com then they are giving their traffic to google. Google benefits when more people use the internet, period. AD free means people wanting to use the network wouldn’t have ads forced on them at the ISP level.
tomcooks 6y ago
You can check if the Mountain View free internet project happened or not, for starters
ardit33 6y ago
NYC has the LinkNyc free wifi program. Guess who uses it the most? ..... the homeless, and the poor. (they replaced pay phones with it, and i have seen it being used always by the less than fortunate types). Connecting to it is not great, but it is better than nothing. This would have helped the poorest people, yet SF turned it away without providing a substitute.
- busterarm 6y ago
  LinkNYC is run by Intersection (a merger of Control Group and Titan (who owned all of the MTA advertising)), which is owned by Sidewalk Labs. Those LinkNYC terminals also run huge display ads 24/7, specifically targeted at the people in range of seeing them. Internally, the terminals are two Android devices. Sidewalk Labs' parent company? Alphabet. aka Google.
- nlh 6y ago
  Just to add to the sibling comment: LinkNYC absolutely benefits from this commercially. Those terminals are packed with sensors & cameras, and they collect MAC addresses, count pedestrians, etc. etc. etc. Free WiFi in exchange for prime on-street real estate for your sensors turned out to be a superb deal for them.
ugh123 6y ago
I think the [valid] criticism is around the reasons the politicians wouldn't vote to approve. If their reasoning was based on anti competitive and privacy issues, then i'd understand.
ergocoder 6y ago
Sacca said he eventually ran the same program in Mountain View. > Google (dude's employer) was just going to gift internet to the entire city of San Francisco, starting with the poor, 100% free in perpetuity, and somehow promise to never use the data for any advertising purposes whatsoever? So, this is easily verifiable that what he claims is true.
austenallred 6y ago
Google makes money per internet user, and a lot of its money comes from intent-based keyword searches. Blanketing anywhere in more internet is a money-maker for Google. Of course if they used Google or Gmail or Chrome Google would make more money. Doesn’t have to be linked to the Internet itself.
nostrademons 6y ago
They ended up doing this in Mountain View. It was actually truly anonymous (other than what the networking protocol needs - MAC address etc.): it was just an open wi-fi network that blanketed the whole city. You'd connect with your device, and it didn't ask you anything: no capport, no splash page. Speeds were pretty slow, which is why I didn't use it as my default connection, and presumably why the program was eventually discontinued (the official reason was lack of usage). It also wouldn't surprise me if they ran into abuse issues (eg. people downloading torrents on it all the time to avoid the RIAA).
- kijiki 6y ago
  I don't know anything about the SF program, but I lived in Mountain View at the time (still do). They put one of the mesh nodes on a street lamp about 200 feet away from my house. I played around with using it as a backup for when the DSL was down, but I gave up because it required you to log in with a google account.
  - nostrademons 6y ago
    I don't recall it requiring a Google account, at least when I tried it. Perhaps they changed it over time. Back then you could just sign up for GMail accounts without giving over any useful personal information though.
    - kijiki 6y ago
      I used a burner gmail account to try it out. It was slow enough the idea of creating new burner gmail accounts every time I wanted to use it was uninteresting. IIRC, it was below 128kbit/s for me, though there was at least one mesh hop away from a node that had a directional antenna pointed towards 444 Castro. Perhaps it was faster if your local node happened to have a direct uplink to either 444 or the 'plex.
hindsightbias 6y ago
Google is evil on HN, but the SF Board is eviler. I’m sure other major metros supes would have no problems with freebies and would feel no pain from their campaign sponsors in competing interwebs markets.
foobazzy 6y ago
I honor your skepticism and relate to it at some level. But having been a beneficiary of the "Google/RailTel wifi"[0] in India, I can't help but think: "Meh, sometimes it just is free internet." It was just... regular old internet. No gotchas that I faced. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/google-ends-its-free-wi-fi-program-station/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/google-ends-its-free-wi-fi...
tim333 6y ago
That sounds a little like the "vote against it unless we promised to fund quarterly field trips" position mentioned in the tweets. Should the people have been denied internet because their moral superious were worried they might - shock horror - be advertised to one day?

dcow 6y ago

How is this different from any other internet provider? If the users go to google.com then they are giving their traffic to google. Google benefits when more people use the internet, period. AD free means people wanting to use the network wouldn’t have ads forced on them at the ISP level.

tomcooks 6y ago

You can check if the Mountain View free internet project happened or not, for starters

ardit33 6y ago

NYC has the LinkNyc free wifi program. Guess who uses it the most? ..... the homeless, and the poor. (they replaced pay phones with it, and i have seen it being used always by the less than fortunate types). Connecting to it is not great, but it is better than nothing. This would have helped the poorest people, yet SF turned it away without providing a substitute.

busterarm 6y ago
LinkNYC is run by Intersection (a merger of Control Group and Titan (who owned all of the MTA advertising)), which is owned by Sidewalk Labs. Those LinkNYC terminals also run huge display ads 24/7, specifically targeted at the people in range of seeing them. Internally, the terminals are two Android devices. Sidewalk Labs' parent company? Alphabet. aka Google.
nlh 6y ago
Just to add to the sibling comment: LinkNYC absolutely benefits from this commercially. Those terminals are packed with sensors & cameras, and they collect MAC addresses, count pedestrians, etc. etc. etc. Free WiFi in exchange for prime on-street real estate for your sensors turned out to be a superb deal for them.

ugh123 6y ago

I think the [valid] criticism is around the reasons the politicians wouldn't vote to approve. If their reasoning was based on anti competitive and privacy issues, then i'd understand.

ergocoder 6y ago

Sacca said he eventually ran the same program in Mountain View. > Google (dude's employer) was just going to gift internet to the entire city of San Francisco, starting with the poor, 100% free in perpetuity, and somehow promise to never use the data for any advertising purposes whatsoever? So, this is easily verifiable that what he claims is true.

austenallred 6y ago

Google makes money per internet user, and a lot of its money comes from intent-based keyword searches. Blanketing anywhere in more internet is a money-maker for Google. Of course if they used Google or Gmail or Chrome Google would make more money. Doesn’t have to be linked to the Internet itself.

nostrademons 6y ago

They ended up doing this in Mountain View. It was actually truly anonymous (other than what the networking protocol needs - MAC address etc.): it was just an open wi-fi network that blanketed the whole city. You'd connect with your device, and it didn't ask you anything: no capport, no splash page. Speeds were pretty slow, which is why I didn't use it as my default connection, and presumably why the program was eventually discontinued (the official reason was lack of usage). It also wouldn't surprise me if they ran into abuse issues (eg. people downloading torrents on it all the time to avoid the RIAA).

kijiki 6y ago
I don't know anything about the SF program, but I lived in Mountain View at the time (still do). They put one of the mesh nodes on a street lamp about 200 feet away from my house. I played around with using it as a backup for when the DSL was down, but I gave up because it required you to log in with a google account.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  I don't recall it requiring a Google account, at least when I tried it. Perhaps they changed it over time. Back then you could just sign up for GMail accounts without giving over any useful personal information though.
  - kijiki 6y ago
    I used a burner gmail account to try it out. It was slow enough the idea of creating new burner gmail accounts every time I wanted to use it was uninteresting. IIRC, it was below 128kbit/s for me, though there was at least one mesh hop away from a node that had a directional antenna pointed towards 444 Castro. Perhaps it was faster if your local node happened to have a direct uplink to either 444 or the 'plex.

hindsightbias 6y ago

Google is evil on HN, but the SF Board is eviler. I’m sure other major metros supes would have no problems with freebies and would feel no pain from their campaign sponsors in competing interwebs markets.

foobazzy 6y ago

I honor your skepticism and relate to it at some level. But having been a beneficiary of the "Google/RailTel wifi"[0] in India, I can't help but think: "Meh, sometimes it just is free internet." It was just... regular old internet. No gotchas that I faced. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/google-ends-its-free-wi-fi-program-station/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/google-ends-its-free-wi-fi...

tim333 6y ago

That sounds a little like the "vote against it unless we promised to fund quarterly field trips" position mentioned in the tweets. Should the people have been denied internet because their moral superious were worried they might - shock horror - be advertised to one day?