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Comment by quadrangle | Hacker News Reader

Nonsense. Facebook is rich enough and powerful enough to MAKE the choice be full-internet or nothing. They and other powerful entities can provide full internet. It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. FaceBook is not some savior here. The ramifications of pushing everyone to FB are also devastating because they would force everyone to get locked in to using FB for everything and then the power imbalance will be extremely serious in the long-term. Even a delay in getting people online is better for the people's interests than locking them into a shitty closed system for the long-term.

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Facebook is not a carrier.

If any carrier chooses to provide full Internet access for free, they may do so.

So far they haven't, though. Which is why company-sponsored basic service that's free to the users emerged in the first place.

If they truly had altruistic intentions, they damn well could be.

Sure but what's a solution that's a reasonable compromise until that happens?

its not a "reasonable compromise" from the point of view that Facebook is supposedly acting altruistically, this is a 100% self interested power play.

Is someone whose wireless Internet budget tops at $0 better off with access to 1 communication tool or 0?

(I realize that "unlimited communication tools" is the best answer here, but no one provides it at the budget specified, at least yet).

if the plan goes ahead, that could very easily turn into "never provides", via facebook content lockin and strongarming.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

that usually comes to bite you later.

with only one tv channel/radio station/available free web site to billions of poor, bad politicians can focus much easier on praying them. this worked very well when their only entertainment was religion cults.

everything has a consequence that will indirectly affect your ivory tower.

Your saying I'm in the ivory tower? Bad politicians have already kept a billion Indians out of modernity. Maybe they should give Free Basics a chance before they shut it down to protect their own power, or some ivory tower view that no internet connection is better than a very limited connection that nonetheless connects you with people across the world.

If there's an alternative way to expand connectivity, then why doesn't it exist now, or why doesn't someone set it up in competition to Free Basics? No one will use Free Basics if they can get real internet at an affordable price.

And your characterization of "one station" is wholly inaccurate. Even if the service included only Facebook (which it doesn't, as anyone can apply to have their web service included in the system), that's millions of profiles and pages with differing opinions, competing products, etc.

There are a lot of assumptions and learning from 200 years of capitalism baked into that remark. The rampant 'success' of capitalism was also a factor leading to communism. Like any good self regulating system it needs mechanisms in place to control it's own greed.

Also, altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory because it assumes a more enlightened, rather than simple minded, understanding of altruism.

> altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory

To add to your point, which I'm sure is in reference to macro-level phenomenon such as the interdependence of species, symbiosis, ecosystem complexity and the like, it's important to note that multi-cellular organisms are the epitome of individuals (cells) working for the greater good rather than local self-interest. Eons ago single cells started working together and specializing. White blood cells, neural cells and muscle cells don't compete against each other, much less is there white blood cell on white blood cell competition. When cells behavior breaks from the greater good, we call it cancer.

A perfect example of pure self interest is the virus.

Interesting that many people do consider capitalism akin to cancer, or that it behaves virally.

I'm not against altruism. That's not the point I was trying to make at all.

But whereas altruistic solutions to problems require continual interest from the donor class (which is subject the same fads as the rest of our culture), or government coercion (which eventually gets co-opted by political considerations), market solutions are robust because people are profiting from them. We'd all love to feed the starving people of the world, but sending ships full of free food isn't the solution (and can actually be harmful). It's much much more effective to set in motion the market forces that will create a stable food supply year after year.

Agree, donor based systems are non-sustainable. But tax based systems for public goods are. The Facebook initiative looks innocuous enough but Facebook is creating a dependency that could be very dangerous for the public good as the perceived marginal cost of other services is seen to be too high.

The Internet is a basic utility and public good. Monopoly usually doesn't seem to be a good model for these kinds of systems.

FWIW, Snowdrift.coop is trying to create a donor-based system for public goods that is as close as one could get to being sustainable in the way tax-based systems are. A voluntary tax can never match an imposed tax, but a social pledge and organized system can make voluntary much more feasible than it is otherwise in the status quo…

Multicellular organisms are made up of single cells which, if not for being neutered by evolution, would compete selfishly to the detriment of the organism as a whole.

Without that regulation, multicellular organisms wouldn't exist.

Really? It was capitalism, but not The Enlightenment, mathematics and science, or the development of egalitarian rule of law, or democracy?

Feudalism may have lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system in the history of the world at the time. It's a good thing we didn't decide to stop there. What would you have written at the time?

Reminder that capitalism required driving people from their land and ability to provide for themselves so that there's a permanent cheap labor force willing to work for practically nothing to survive.

I'm not sure that any system doesn't need /any/ altruism. It may be the case that systems which do not require much altruism to function work better, because there is a higher chance of the requirement being met, but I think that a good system would also have mechanism by which altruism can provide further benefits.

If what is required for people to act in a way that benefits others is for the people to be motivated to act that way, it seems that people being motivated by the benefit that their actions have for others would be a good motivation for them to act that way, as far as it is an available motivation.

Which, seems compatible with some senses of the word "capitalism". People value their own well-being, and the well-being of others, by some amounts, and based on that, take actions and make agreements with others so as to serve these ends as they see fit.

Of course, in that sense any system could be seen as a sort of capitalism, leading capitalism to be almost like a tautology?

Which doesn't seem to match how people use it, so either I don't understand the intent behind how people use it, or, uh, it's almost kind of empty? Probably the former.

I'm not sure what to say to this absurd nonsense, in the same way that I wasn't sure how to deal with the kids in my elementary school who really believed that Santa Clause was real. Just telling them they are wrong doesn't help.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791939

One carrier is already trying this.

Also, facebook isn't even financing the actual data (the carriers are), and the carriers' business plan (get people hooked onto the Internet so they migrate to a full plan) works on any form of "free limited internet" plan, where the plan is limited by speed or a data cap instead of by limiting what "Internet" means. Facebook is a third party which has wedged itself into this with extra deals; but the situation from the carriers' point of view shouldn't be much different if they set a free data cap or provide a free slow internet plan.

Google has announced free Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations in India. I think it does something similar in other countries (and there is Google Fibre). It is just a start but more sensible than what facebook chose to do.

Now this is what I think. Facebook is interested in being a monopoly and this step will ensure its rivals don't get in (because facebook pays for it). This is what all the argument is about. Saying billion people will get free internet is just an eyewash. They don't give you full internet, just the part which serves their interest.

Carriers should not control/discrimintate internet access. This should apply to other companies as well.

Cost structures for providing free WiFi and providing wireless telecom service are completely different though - a telecom ought to procure proper licensing, acquire some spectrum and buy/rent tower space before they earn their first dollar.

End of the day it's all about barriers for entry - the barrier to provide free WiFi is relatively low, and one can do it at the cost of an uplink connection and a wireless router. If you find a way to lower the barrier for wireless telecom space, the market forces will take over.

It's not true that no other carrier is offering free internet. It's a better model with no restrictions.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/aircel-to-...

What if I claim you are rich enough to donate to charities of not only your choice, but my choice as well. Will you donate to arbitrary charities that arbitrary people ask you to? Just because you have money does not mean we get to tell you what to do with it.

>Even a delay in getting people online is better for the people's interests than locking them into a shitty closed system for the long-term.

That's because you have the luxury of having Internet access and are not affected by lack of it. Why don't you let those without any access at all get some access and let them decide whether they want to be locked in or not? Or are you saying you know what they want better then they do?

Unfortunately neither does any one if us know what the unconnected want. Let's not pretend we do.

So, given that, we're doing what we would've wanted to be done if we were in their position.

Locking me into a particular website (or a set of) , especially the one which misuses my personal information is not something i want to be locked into.

Hence, we shouldn't stand by silently letting them be locked into "Facebook and partners".

Facebook is so asking for it, this time.

> So, given that, we're doing what we would've wanted to be done if we were in their position.

Actually, I'd rather get any connectivity I could get.

> What if I claim you are rich enough to donate to charities of not only your choice, but my choice as well.

High inequality and mega-rich charity are a related issue. Rich people is not contributing with taxes as they should. If that were the case the states will have more resources to help where help is needed.

This was in the news some time ago: "Germany's super-rich have rejected an invitation by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to join their 'Giving Pledge' to give away most of their fortune. The pledge has been criticized in Germany, with millionaires saying donations shouldn't replace duties that would be better carried out by the state."

I completely agree with that position. The state, voted by its citizens, should decide not the super-rich even when they have good intentions.

> decide whether they want to be locked in or not

is the same logic as, "let people sell themselves into slavery". Sure, who is X to stop someone from selling themselves into slavery, right? But it's also an extreme asshole response to a situation where a rich and powerful slaver goes to poor people and says, "my goal is to help you, when you choose to become my slave, I will clothe and feed you and even educate you, I'm doing this to help you" and someone criticizes that.

It doesn't matter if it's not MY business to stop FB or take away others' freedom to use FB. FB is still doing this to gain power, and the ramifications of this long-term are terrible. And your statement amounts to "FB has a right to lock people in (and to misrepresent their motives), and people have a right to choose to be locked in" which is a shitty pathetic reply to my criticism.

I think your argument makes no sense. I am all for helping people etc, but just because Facebook is rich by your definition, the poor people are not entitled to its money. FB will do what is needed to promote its self interest and in that process some (supposedly poor) people get some amount of free internet, its not such an evil thing, though, if it turns to be an evil thing in the long run, it could be regulated in the future. I see arguments about net neutraility though, but I dont understand/see the solution, if FB cancels this, there is no free wikipedia to the masses (which is horrible).

The argument you're imagining makes no sense, but it isn't my argument. My argument isn't that FB has an obligation in our system to provide free internet to people nor is it that rejecting FB here is in every possible respect better. My argument is that FB is lying when they present their motives as being about the interests of the poor citizens.

I think you are not hearing the point. Given that Facebook is a greedy company (and not a charity), its not going to give away free full internet. So our choice is about allowing, or not allowing, a billion poor people free Facebook access.

Its easy for us to say this is no good and it should be stopped because Facebook access is not as good as the full internet. But who are we to deny poor people what little they can get?

It won't be a billion poor people getting free Facebook access.

Indians who can afford smartphones and electricity, but not a basic data plan (how many?), will be getting Facebook access at the price of being subjected to advertising, tracking, etc.

People are crafty. You dont have to have electricity at home to charge your phone. Its enough there is one power source in the village. (There was a news story about a boy that built a windmill, and the villagers paid him a bit to charge their phones). You dont even need your own phone. You can share or rent one by the minute.

Second hand smartphones are getting pretty cheap. 2.8 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day. A second hand smart phone might go for 20 dollars. So its a few weeks worth of savings.

Imagine all those people getting on Facebook. They will find a way to use it for what they need.

> 2.8 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day. A second hand smart phone might go for 20 dollars. So its a few weeks worth of savings.

Ten weeks income, and someone who lives on 2 dollars a day can't afford to save 100% of their income to buy a smartphone.

And how much would used smartphone prices increase if a billion people wanted to buy one?

Sharing or renting makes more sense, but in that case, why not share the cost of a data plan?

I misread. 10 days income.

This is not about the poor (although Facebook would have you believe so). It is about who controls data. I am saying this as someone who has lived in a village before. If a walled garden is given free entry, people will never get out of it, and I am stating this from experience. A lot of companies (including startups) will never be able to ever reach 1 billion people. Imagine an Apple Store, but for the whole of internet. That is what this will end with.

First let's keep affordability aside and think about this.

Internet is built on principles of neutrality. It is built on public property (airways, land) that government leases to companies on our behalf. Internet is what it is today because of this neutrality principle. It has given rise to so many companies out of nothingness and created so much opportunity for disruption and growth. So any

We do not want to turn Internet into something useless and backwards (like cable/tv networks). That is what Facebook is trying to do here by lobbying the government to change policy. This has to be stopped no question.

Now let's talk about affordability. Government should look into programs that will lower the overall cost of Internet by reforming how they license spectrum.

They can also provide free access to Internet in public places - like public schools, public libraries, train/bus stations, agri markets etc where most information hungry people who cannot afford are already there. They can also encourage large city/town center operators to provide free wifi.

All said, most poor people in India who don't have Internet are in tier-2/3 cities and villages where there is no connectivity at all today. So, it is not a question of affordability but connectivity.

Facebook is being irresponsible and evil in this case and exploiting the situation and not doing anything to help. In contrast, google recently launched a program to provide high-speed Internet free wifi in 400 train stations in India. This is the largest public wifi program in the world that will actually help poor people.

> It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice.

It's Facebook's fault that many Indians can't afford the Internet? Okay...it's also Facebook's fault that there is poverty in the world. You know, poverty that spontaneously started to exist in 2004, when Facebook was founded.

Nobody's blaming them for creating poverty, but taking advantage of it to lock people in to their system is another matter.

Where did the OP imply any of that?

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