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Comment by nugget | Hacker News Reader

This is an important topic that should be top of mind for all of us and discussed on a regular basis. Facebook is trying hard to become like AOL in the mid 90s. Total control from soup to nuts. Zuckerberg and his team are very clever and calculated in their approach (as any of us might be in their position, similarly incentivized and with no malicious intentions). But we will all be worse off if they are successful. The open web is one of the few things in life I've found worth really fighting for.

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The AOL comparison seems appropriate and is not one I've heard before, good point.

I'd argue that this has even darker motivations than AOL ever did though. At least with AOL people had a choice. There were alternatives to living inside the walled garden.

This seems more like indentured servitude. I suspect strongly that the poorest people that Facebook is targeting here have no option as they can't afford any data charges at all, so will sign up because its this or nothing.

Many of these folks may never have even seen the internet. There's a very real chance that a lot of them will believe that the curated Facebook internet is the internet proper.

I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg considers himself to be a fair and reasonable gatekeeper so doesn't see this as a problem, but this is almost certainly going to be abused sooner or later (spoiler: sooner).

I think even if Mark Zuckerberg considers himself to be a fair and reasonable gatekeeper, there is still a problem, as explained by this note on cultural hegemony (https://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/net-neutrality-and-heg...). The marginalised will simply get even more marginalised.

The problem with gatekeeping is that nobody can be qualified or suitable to fulfill the role of gatekeeper. Focusing on arguments like cultural hegemony is a distraction that gives the impression if enough symptoms are covered-up that the root cause can persist.

Right, of course. My point was that even if there is someone who was perfectly qualified to be a gatekeeper, there are still other problems to consider.

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).

You seem to be misinformed regarding infrastructure. Please research facebook's Aquila before posting.

This would be a great opportunity to correct any misconceptions that might be present. If not for the op, for all the readers.

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.

> 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...

Definitely not.

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.

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!

That's like giving thirsty children free coke, not water.

And these kids just have to take a quick jog to the well (library) for clean water (open 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.

I don't agree. (Can't down vote, too less karma)

On HN you don't down vote when you disagree. You put a coherent argument forward to say why you disagree.

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).

Great point, e_proxus. Seems to be a double standard here. Now I want to upvote your post...

> 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.

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.

People will choose something free over something paid anyway.

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].

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-...

(Edited to replace "typical Indian" with "minimum-wage earning.")

> only use data while on wifi

what wifi?

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.

> This assumes the existence of people who have phones but can't afford internet plans.

If such people didn't exist, neither would Internet.org.

People will still choose something free over something paid.

> 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?

Like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9194870

http://www.trust.org/slideshow/?id=356b4ab3-7e12-440f-9781-b...

Not sure how you'd give them cash.

>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.

> Facebook is trying hard to become like AOL in the mid 90s. Total control from soup to nuts.

Exactly what the government likes, wants & supports - perfect for mass surveillance.

Best case: Single point of access & monopoly situations. Which is why these huge companies will always be treated favorably by the government (despite what it may look like).

"But we will all be worse off if they are successful."

Sorry if this is something obvious to everyone else, but could you explain why it wouldn't be open and why that's a bad thing? Is this some sort of "centralization of power" issue?

The open web is essentially open because anybody with a computer can create and access content online. The cost to entry is almost nil, be it a big corporation or a small startup or any individual.

With Facebook's Internet.org or the "Free Basics" they would be the gatekeepers of defining what the free basic are. It creates a sort of economic divide - why would people people pay to access your site, when a similar big player is providing services on the Facebook's free basic plan?

How is it better for those people to not have internet at all?

That's not "the Internet" as it is known, but another kind of service. They wouldn't have internet. They'd have something else that could easily be (and probably will be) designed to placate the desire to have internet.

Again: how is that worse than having nothing?

And if the argument assumes that they'll eventually have the ability to get full internet, but won't want it at whatever price it costs, then isn't that their choice? If having a free service makes them unwilling to pay for a better service, what's the problem?

There's no options being denied here. For anyone that wants, Facebook's offering has only benefits. If someone thinks it has drawbacks, they're free not to use it. I seriously don't see the problem here.

It's worse than nothing because 'nothing' doesn't line Facebook's pockets and empower their information monopoly over you.

So enabling people to access some sites is now evil because it makes people money (which there's no evidence for; who's paying to advertise to people to poor to pay for internet?)

Do you honestly think the only way the internet could possibly reach these people is through Facebook? This is not an all vs nothing situation. This is a problem with dozens of different solutions and hundreds of different possible outcomes. Facebook says their plan makes for a just world, and you agree with that because you're both being myopic. Facebook at least has an excuse.

Right now, there are no other providers in these areas. So if you ban internet.org, they won't have any internet. Whether other companies might go there in the future is not relevant to the question of whether internet.org should be banned now.

According to you, if internet.org is so horribly evil, why would anyone freely choose to sign up for it?

> Right now, there are no other providers in these areas.

This largely isn't correct. There are other providers, they just cost some money.

This [0] comment by aravindet captures everything that one needs to know. These people are going to get the internet, the question is whether we should allow some company to spend its capital turning them into a captive market for its own financial gain.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10568892

If they can get internet without internet.org, then they aren't exactly being forced into it, right? I still don't see how the consumer is losing by having more choices, and how they would gain if internet.org would be disallowed.

Reply to ikeboy:

There are other providers. Aircel is offering free data at 64kbps. Airtel has started subsidized browsing at off-peak hours. Mozilla has a proposal for ad-subsidized Internet access. And all this is while Internet user base is already growing at 4% every month!

Adding to it, you can be pretty sure all that diversity in offers will go away if Facebook gets to successfully push their plan.

Living in a third world country right now that's rapidly developing. This is almost exclusively a smartphone-only internet society: "the internet" equals to Facebook, Youtube and Skype. Maybe some Clash of Clans, but that's it. There is no desire to open a web browser.

I don't see this changing any time in the future, either. There are still a lot of people without decent internet access here. I am pretty sure nearly all of these people will use Facebook's version of the internet, were it made available to them.

And don't have any illusions: there is no such thing as "net neutrality" here: internet speeds for domestic internet is way faster and cheaper than "real" internet. People have domestic-only internet plans, simply because it's all they need. So there already is massive restrictions put on the internet here, and I would argue that internet.org is not as evil as the local ISPs are.

Smartphone/app only internet is completely different from desktop-centric internet like it is in western countries.

Does nobody ever have to use google to look something up? Something as simple as sickness symptoms or how to make bread or whether it's going to rain on Saturday? Surely these would require net neutrality and won't be all covered by youtube and wikipedia?

No, really, not. I live in Cambodia. Cambodian people care about Facebook, but nobody ever taught them how to use Google. They simply do not know about anything that is withing Safari or Chrome.

Education is low here, but smartphone penetration very high. It's all about sharing pictures and videos through Facebook.

that's interesting...

Internet access is essential. But providing a limited number of sites for free and the rest as paid creates unequal opportunity on an otherwise level playing field.

There are other ways to provide internet connectivity to people - by allowing them to access the entire internet and not limited websites. The Mozilla Foundation runs a program with Grameenphone, where users get free data in exchange for watching an advertisement. It also runs a program with Orange in Africa, where those who purchase a $37 handset get 500 MB of free data.

You didn't answer the question. How is having access to fb worse for users than having access to nothing at all? If Grameenphone is so awesome, why aren't these users using it?

They ARE using other schemes. Internet userbase in India is growing at 4% every month! At this rate, it will reach 64% within two years - without internet.org!

According to that claim, with 1.04^12 ie 60% growth, the internet userbase is currently 40% of country. So we're supposed to be upset that 60% of the country, those without internet access, might access to fb for free?

edit: I accidentally plugged 12 months, not 24 months. 24 months gives 250% growth. I think your numbers are wrong; 150% growth to only 60% implies the current base is 24%???

Yes, 24% is about right. The 4% every month growth is for mobile BROADBAND users (phone + dongles). The current base of mobile BROADBAND (speed greater than 512kbps) users is 97m. I couldn't find the monthly growth rate for (non-mobile | non-broadband) internet users so I have assumed it to be the same. Total internet users in India were about 125m back in 2011.

My source for these numbers is TRAI (India's equivalent of FCC) reports. Happy to be corrected.

And no, the problem is NOT that some people get to use FB for free. The problem is that we have no reason to give a privileged treatment to FB, given that they are NOT contributing in expanding the network at all. FB doesn't bear the bandwidth costs for internet.org, the telcos do. And telcos are already regulated under TRAI and have corresponding obligations. If they want to do commercial deals like these, let us first open the telecom industry to full competition.

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/PR-T...

Current Internet user base in India 375 million and expected to reach 402 million in December. Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/9Vipq3XmcfQuhJRMBleuwL/Indi...

With a population of 1.24B, that makes 30% population being online. So 150% growth in 2 years will take us to 75%.

Saying "you could have done X, which would help people more than what you're doing now" isn't a condemnation, as people seem to be condemning Facebook for this. The whole thing is reminding me of http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...

How can allowing more people limited internet, where before they had no internet, possibly be a bad thing?

It's like giving free soda to the thirsty so they don't seek out something healthier. There is no such thing as limited "internet". If it's limited, it's not the Internet.

A more noble implementation of the idea would provide low-bandwidth connectivity to any site (maybe with a browser that only loads text by default). The service could still deliver local ads to pay for the bandwidth.

If you think soda is harmful, and the effects are severe enough, then ban it. But clearly the limited access that Facebook is offering is not harmful in that sense, because it's a subset of the "full" internet that you want them to offer instead.

And saying that there's a more noble option they could have done doesn't mean that what they did do is wrong.

It's harmful because it promotes digital segregation and corporate control. It's about as right as Nestle giving an inadequate supply of free formula to mothers who could otherwise nurse for free[0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott

>Organizers of the boycott encourage the practice of newborn nutrition via natural breast milk and claim that use of the substitutes represent a health risk for infants

What's the analog to this health risk in the Facebook example? "Digital segregation" is a nice abstract concept, which falls apart when you remember that the people using this have no other way to get internet, so they can't possibly be better off without Facebook.

It's not enough to compare to the past and present. It's necessary to consider the future. Giving people free Facebook and calling it "internet" might make them a little better off now, but at the expense of the long term. It creates a path dependence issue where the better future of full access to the Internet is less likely to be obtained. This cripples their potential, and hurts others already on the Internet who could benefit from communicating with these newcomers.

Consider a utilitarian analogy. Suppose people need to see a benefit of 10 "units" before they are motivated to do something to obtain the benefit. Free Facebook might have a benefit of 6 units, which prevents people from reaching the activation energy to seek out the 15 units of benefit from true Internet access.

the real Internet will come, sooner or later but a monopolized, censored mutation might postpone that, thus curbing it's self-empowering and democratic potential.

this programm really has to die. and we all should help killing and burying it.

@ikeboy/facebook employee

How well did the middle ages work out with it's 1-book policy? It regressed society from the very modern greek society with democracy to the so called dark ages. abondoning science and pluralistic cultures for centuries.

Slaves get choices too, to die or live as slaves. Some might even find happiness as being slaves.

What mechanisms would this "postponement" work through?

Can you genuinely not see or are you just being disingenuous?

The mechanism this would work by is ignorance, if someone is unaware that they only have access to a tiny subsection and believes that they have internet access (and we all know plenty of people that thought AOLs walled garden was the internet) then they are less likely to seek out real unfettered internet access.

Reckon Facebook are going to have big banners up telling them this is only a fraction of the net? I very much doubt it.

If you're so against an open internet what are you doing on HackerNews? Surely there is somewhere you could post about this on Facebook. Oh wait a second you love having access to the whole internet you just don't think people poorer than you deserve it.

So that should be addressed by education and banning misleading advertising, not by banning the program altogether.

Did I say I was against an open internet? I'm against government regulation of the Internet, while the people arguing with me here are in favor. There's more than one way to frame this about "open".

I could also snarkily ask you why you don't think the poor deserve to have access to anything, which is what will happen if internet.org isn't allowed.

If you really think that poor people deserve free internet, start a charity that brings it to them. But banning other providers from taking gradual steps towards internet access won't help them.

Will they be able to develop their own local services?

Imagine if MySpace at its height could have killed off Facebook, Twitter, TenCent, and anything else which looked like competition.

Because it hurts all other nodes in the net that is already open. So those kinds of arrangements even if beneficial for the newly connected (which I doubt) hurts everyone else. And the people that are newly connected will approach the internet not with the hacker mindset, but the values of walled gardens and app stores. You only see what your overseer wants you to see.

Some of the arguments here are not very well thought of. - It's to make money/ it will limit access to other competitive services/ etc. Think of the market this is reaching. Mind you there are no pictures or videos in the internet.org version iirc. This is not the market you'd want to reach for your services/ads as not only tge experience is limited, but also these are the people that can't even really afford internet. If it was for money/ world domination/ jeopardize the purity of internet the target audience would be different.

- it should be access to all internet. I think we all agree on that, including Zuckerberg, however it is childish to think that an ISP would be willing to work with that. The greatest challenge in a project of this magnitude is working with the local service providers. They are the ones that need to be convinced, and you'd need to work with to make this happen. I think a good exercise for everyone here is to think, how would I solve the problem of internet illiteracy.. Realistically?

The "watch an ad an get internet" does not sound to me as appealing for the service providers. They are basically using internet, to give internet, to someone that can't afford internet? I don't think this initiative would be succesful.

- "This is only a hinderance and hurts when internet is eventually accesible to everyone." This is what Paul Graham calls indefinite optimism. How exactly do you think this will just happen? The answer is little by little working with the service providers, phone manufacturers, etc. which is what fb does, and the fact they actually got something that everyone is willing to accept is pretty unbelievable.

So instead of idealistically oposing something that would make disconnected people lives better, how about thinking how would you solve the problem? Align all the major players over an initiative that would hardly lead to high revenues.

And if you doubt the usefulness of it how about you check the access it gives. I personally consider wikipedia pretty useful.

It is almost certainly beneficial for each individual in the short term - having some sort of connection is better than having no connection. However, the value for that group of people over time is less obvious, as they will be incentivised to remain within the Facebook-controlled garden, rather than being free to choose how to direct their time and money.

It isn't much more than an attempt at monopoly, and I think it seems more egregious because of it being explicitly targeted at the poor. In truth, it seems unlikely to me that those people won't simply be able to migrate to other services when they can afford it, but I also find it hard to believe that there won't be some (possibly significant) monopolisation effect.

For some additional perspective, here's a view from India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0w_YhZUYeA

In truth, it seems unlikely to me that those people won't simply be able to migrate to other services when they can afford it, but I also find it hard to believe that there won't be some (possibly significant) monopolisation effect.

If we're worried about long-term effects, but concede there's a gain for everyone short-term, isn't the right thing to do to let them do it now, and if these negative effects materialize, then stop it?

Only Facebook has that level of control over the situation, and their only incentive is to try and make as much money as possible.

On a personal level, whilst I don't have strong feelings about the campaign against internet.org, I wouldn't mind if they succeeded. I do have to question why we think net neutrality is so important for us, but not for the poorest in the world. Did you watch the video I linked to? Before watching that I (obviously very naively) hadn't really considered the issue in net neutrality terms, preferring to see it as you appear to, in terms of something-better-than-nothing, but now I'm really not so sure.

I'm against net neutrality, for many of the same reasons I don't have a problem with this Facebook initiative.

So any argument of the form "but it's against net neutral" won't work for me.

There are still people with AOL email addresses. That migration to better things seems to take a generation while many people will continue to be willingly walled-in just out of habit.

Email in particular is hard to change after you've used it with a number of accounts. That's very different than ISPs.

AOL email is free (well, ad-supported) now, so people "stuck" with it may have moved to a different ISP.

Tell me, do you recommend this to smokers too?

"Nah, just keep smoking, once you have cancer you can still stop."

I hope you see the problem with that rationale.

Except smoking is harmful even if only done for a short period of time, while he alleged harm in these services only happens if they're around for a while.

Yes, looks like you don't get the point. The exact opposite is true, this is harmful from the time it get implanted, and the harm only grows with time.

Also, just like smoking, once the harm is big enough, there's no easy coming back.

Why is it harmful right away? Right away, you have people getting online who otherwise would not be online at all. The harm is only later, if they end up not getting fully online because they're satisfied. If that happens, and the benefits of internet.org no longer exceed the costs, then would be the time to ban it.

How is allowing internet.org now and stopping to allow it if and when it starts causing people to have less internet than they would otherwise (assuming that extra choice is bad here, which I do not concede) a bad thing?

>...then would be the time to ban it.

Right. Once the downsides of smoking were realized, it was quickly brought to an end.

Smoking makes you feel good right away, and in the long term in screws up cell development.

The argument is that internet.org gets people some access right away, and in the long term screws up infrastructure development.

The negative effects are being caused from day one. You can't just cut the program after five years to keep all the good and prevent the bad.

In the very short run, they will be worse off. In about a year or two, they will have access to the Internet anyway (see below). If internet.org is not allowed to violate net neutrality, they will come online to a better, more open Internet.

I oppose internet.org due to the permanent damage that it will cause to the Internet itself. Please see my earlier comment for how this will happen.

Internet.org probably won't shut down even if strong net neutrality is legislated in India; they would merely change their program to be compliant, by using a data cap on free (beer and freedom) internet use.

The cost for ISPs are the same in either scenario. The fiction about internet.org being "cheaper" to provide than the open Internet doesn’t hold water.

Internet growth in India: 20% of Indians have Internet access today, a number that has grown at 30% annually for the last five years. Mobile phone use grew from 20% to 75% in five years, so it is likely that Internet use would also get there by 2019 without internet.org.

Largely it's rich Indians trying to block poorer Indians from having access to shiny things on specious moral grounds.

Just who the hell are you to deny your poorer countrymen free access, based on your personal beliefs from a position of pure privilege?

Would you give up your internet access for the same cause? No, I didn't think so.

That is an interesting characterization of the situation. I would be more inclined to agree with you about X denying something to Y if Y had asked for it in the first place. However, in this case, I have heard Zuck himself saying numerous times that one issue with poorer countries is that they don't really know what internet is and they don't feel the need to pay to use it in the first place. It is hard to portray that as denial of connectivity to a certain set of people. They never asked for it. This is probably a bad analogy, but I see it more like a drug dealer luring away users for free, and some public organizations trying to ban that behavior.

That analogy only works if you think that internet in the Facebook version is actively harmful.

Suggesting it's ok to deny someone access to the Internet because they don't know what it has roughly the same moral weight as denying someone access to antibiotics because they don't know what they are.

Actually rich Indians are pretty happy about Internet.org - internet access makes it much easier for them to get propaganda out to poor villagers, thereby solidifying their power base. I think that poster makes a solid point about the integrity of the internet itself, though.

In a country where ~25% of the population live on under $1.25 a day, it doesn't take very much to be comparatively rich.

Apart from what's already been said here, it's important to think about how you would build such a service. You would start to offer it where people have access to clients and the basic communication infrastructure (backbones) is already in place but where Internet access is still not sold or just too expensive.

All you do in that situation is creating roadblocks for small ISPs. It's probably not hard to convince the incumbent telcos to get in on it. All you have to do is create a good business proposal. Telcos have tried similar things since ever since IP started to win, especially in the mobile space, but they've never had the services people want.

This is an unholy alliance between telcos and big content, and could very well succeeed. But I am still an optimist. I believe the market will win out in the end, and one thing we know for certain is that what people really want is the Internet. It will only delay that for a number of years, but that's hardly any consolation for those potential entrepreneurs stuck in that particular irrational market.

Think of Internet.org as part VC then.

Yes. Internet.org will hand facebook enormous power that would threaten open competition on the public internet, not just on internet.org.

Participation on internet.org is subject to approval by Facebook and ISPs. They choose the winners on their platform, not end users.

Imagine a world where, say, 20% of users are on internet.org. If you're building a consumer service that benefits from network effects, you must be on internet.org or else you will be eaten up by a competitor who is. Facebook, through its veto over internet.org participation, can now play an outsize role in deciding which consumer internet services get traction and which don’t.

App developers will divert resources from building features that users want, into building features that gets them perks from Facebook — probably by pushing more and more user data into the “open” graph. This would not just harm internet.org consumers, it will harm every internet user.

The veto power is the part that makes this whole thing dishonest. Claiming non profit status and presumably taking advantage of tax exemptions in order to boost Facebook's core business? Does anyone else see the conflicts there?

Essentially Zuckerberg is trying to use the strategy Carlos Slim used in Mexico with mobile phones: be the only game in town for years by making exclusivity deals with the government and by the time the competition is finally able to compete in a free(er) market, Slim has such a head start as to be unstoppable. Except now Zuck is doing this at a billion scale rather than a Mexico scale.

I think the Google balloon internet project has far more value than this. Google wants you to use their services, but at least they are interested in the entire internet for the poor and not just Facebook-y type access.

Remember that for some users Facebook effectively is the Internet. They have a normal broadband connection in a relatively affluent western country but spend much of their time online using Facebook for browsing and two-way communication with other Facebook users.

On a regular basis I'll hear someone mention 'their website' and when I ask for the URL it is clear from their reply that what they mean is they have a Facebook page for their group/business/whatever. When I press further they seem to understand the concept that owning a domain name and having a 'website' on Facebook are not exactly the same. These are normal users, not stupid people, and this is how perceive things right now.

This is anecdotal and I don't have any peer-reviewed studies to cite but I suspect this is pretty common and I wonder if others are seeing the same thing?

Sure, some people may spend most of their time on Facebook, but it doesn't mean it is all of their time.

The same people who spend most of their time on Facebook would probably be very annoyed if all of a sudden their online banking would need to be done through Facebook with a Facebook-approved bank, or if they couldn't book airplane tickets on a third-party site or check the weather and so on.

That's the problem with internet.org; it's not that people wouldn't spend most of their time on Facebook, but it's that it makes it harder for non-Facebook entities to get access to these users, essentially building a Facebook-branded moat.

For example, say that building an ISP to reach these users has a fixed cost of x. This means that if that ISP has n users, the costs of building that ISP are spread out amongst those n users (ie. x/n); however, with internet.org, this would lower the demand for this ISP (because n will be smaller, due to some people not interested in having anything else but Facebook) and because the price of getting actual internet will be higher.

It's definitely a good move for Facebook, but creates large negative externalities for other people. A better move overall (but less so for Facebook), would be to give free access to the actual internet but let them access Facebook on its own merits. If Facebook offers such value to these users (and it definitely does for a lot of people), then there is no need to wall these users off of the rest of the internet.

Edit: formatting.

It's amazing to me how Facebook reinvented the AOL keyword from the outside in.

Wow, I haven't thought of it that way but it makes perfect sense. Almost like a web portal (think Yahoo!) with email, chat, pictures, news on the right side, etc. but under a social aegis

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