No one doubts that the open web is a good thing. But no where in your entire post do you address the apparent upside of Internet.org: people who wouldn't be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it. I think at that point the argument against Internet.org isn't as black and white. You can make an argument that in the long run it might be a bad thing but you have to acknowledge that at least in the near term it is providing some benefit.
Right, but if you look at the adoption curves of technology, empirically, the long run comes quite quickly, so it is questionable that accelerating technology adoption is worth the long term monopoly leverage it brings.
EDIT: this is especially true considering Internet.org, despite its pitch, does not actually bring much to the connectivity infrastructure. It works in places where mobile connectivity infrastructure already exists, just (presumably) not affordable enough. It is purely an economic arbitrage game, not infrastructure development.
EDIT2: I also speculate that competition between big players (e.g. Google vs Facebook) will not help resolve the problem either. Since all incumbents benefit from stuff like this, and almost all newcomers lose, big guys have few incentives to break down such paradigms after they are built up (very much like gerrymandering that Democrats and Republicans both like as it benefits them all).
> It works in places where mobile connectivity infrastructure already exists, just (presumably) not affordable enough. It is purely an economic arbitrage game, not infrastructure development.
It's worse than that. Creating a substandard product and giving it away for free destroys infrastructure development. A large mass of customers are going to take the free offering and each one who does and would otherwise have paid comes out of the budget the provider has available for expansion and upgrades.
This doesn't change whether Facebook is building their own infrastructure or leasing someone else's. If they lease existing infrastructure then they're large enough to pay wholesale rather than retail prices and the (large) difference comes out of the local provider's capital budget. If they build their own and sell below cost then it's even worse -- competitors will lose both subscribers and margins if not go out of business entirely.
Here's how I expect Aquila to work: They'll install it and drive all the local competitors out of business, and the incumbents' infrastructure will fall into disrepair or be sold for scrap. Then at some future date there will be an economic recession and Facebook accountants will wonder whether it makes sense to keep all these drones in the air to provide free access to a bunch of customers in developing countries with no money who are therefore highly undesirable to advertisers. The answer will be no.
So they'll either discontinue the project or start charging money. At that point those people will have gone from paying money for the real internet to either paying money for the fake internet, or having no access whatsoever.
I kind of agree with Zaidf, in countries like India it might not come as quickly as you think. But I think FB and Indian Govt should be given a chance to iterate over this plan, see what works and what doesn't and then regulate again. Iterate and regulate...
For one, India's tech growth (even if it is in outsourcing) has been because it escaped the then watchers. They are more likely to build rules which help close partners to the government, or people who spend the time to help the government formulate their plans (Like facebook is).
Secondly, even in America, the one thing which is pushing adoption of better speeds in cities is the availability of a competitor like Google Fibre.
India had a lot more competition, but the recent Supreme Court judgement cancelled a lot of licenses which were given out, and many players were forced to requote for licenses in their circles.
As you can imagine, many smaller players were completely cut out, and today most of the market share for mobile telephony is distributed between 4 players.
Iteration can mean iteration of incrementally more regulatory capture each time.
I googled it up, and from the dates on news reports, it looks like it's been stuck in "ready for testing" limbo for months and there are zero meaningful specs or details on the drone itself published.
I also found Tim Berners-Lee trashing the buisness model, and philanthropist Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to solve in the developing world before connectivity.
I didn't think I could be more negative on Facebook's shitty internet.org, but now I am. Thanks for encouraging me to do the research!
> philanthropist Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to solve in the developing world before connectivity.
Perhaps 'connectivity' is what Mark Zuckerberg is good at solving. We all should be doing things we are good at if its not harming anyone. At this moment people just have theories that internet.org might not be a good thing. People can be wrong, only time will tell.
Internet users in India are currently growing at 4% every month. Where is the need to compromise neutrality? At this rate, 64% of India will be online in just 2 years!
Remember, Indian telecom brought 1 billion users to mobile in a span of just 15 years. The same thing will happen on the Internet!
The metaphor from the article is getting free food if you worship my god (like a colonial missionary).
For the well example it's a quick jog to a man handing out sealed bottles of branded water. The library is curtailed and pre selected and the water is not open but closed and walled within Facebook.
Honest question: By extension, should you then not up vote when you agree? The FAQ and guidelines does not mention any special rules about up- or down voting (except for not asking about them and comment on them).
> You can make an argument that in the long run it might be a bad thing but you have to acknowledge that at least in the near term it is providing some benefit.
Does anyone know of any good charities helping build out information infrastructure for communities that would massively benefit from it, so that I can contribute constructively as well as criticizing Facebook's approach?
>people who wouldn't be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it.
That's the point they want to sell. It's like offering a poor man some sweet drink. Until and unless you consider what the drink is and what it's long term affects are, it appears only as charity: giving a poor man a drink.
> the apparent upside of Internet.org: people who wouldn't be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it
Except that's just it. It's an apparent upside.
This assumes the existence of people who have phones but can't afford internet plans. That's not the case in India, at least. Data plans are pretty cheap, and if you can afford a phone that works on the modern internet (i.e., supports Facebook), you can afford these.
So it's not really providing some benefit. It's letting the impoverished save a small fraction of their income (okay, that is a benefit, but probably not major), and it's moving people off the Internet onto the Facebookternet.
A lot of the non-Internet-users are people who don't really want to or care to use the Internet, not due to poverty.
This does not line up with anything I've read about mobile Internet usage in India. You may be underestimating the willingness of poor people (the vast majority of India) to save up for an extremely low-end smart phone.
By and large, mobile Internet users in poor countries are extremely careful with their metered Internet usage and try to only use data while on wifi. 50% of Indians with smartphones deactivate their data, as a minimum-wage earning Indian needs to work 18 hours to afford a 500 MB top-up[2].
There's not much wifi in rural areas, one place that Internet.org is targeting. In cities, yes, but then they already had access to wifi.
I don't deny that folks will be judicious with their Internet. I'm refuting the humanitarian benefit touted by Facebook: "people who wouldn't be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it". That's wrong. People who can afford the Internet will be able to access it more freely, agreed. And I did say that that is a benefit, but not major, especially the way things are going with respect to connectivity and data costs.
And as countless others have mentioned in this thread, Internet.org is not the only solution in place that tries to provide this.
If that's true, then no one has and no one will choose to use the service in meaningful numbers, and it won't be a "problem". People who want to can use it, and people who don't want to can use something else.
