Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

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Facebook's approach is to work with the telecoms in order to have them offer a subset of the internet for free on mobile devices (notably Facebook, Wikipedia and some others).

Part of this is that people who have never been online before don't understand the value of getting online. This allows them to have some access in order to better understand the value. The model is a bit like the old shareware model DOOM used - give a few levels for free and if they like it they can pay for the rest.

The backlash was the argument that Zuckerberg was only giving access to a few websites (mostly Facebook) in order to get more control of the internet without following net neutrality. To me this seems to be an oversimplified and overly pessimistic view of what happened.

The telecoms are not going to just give free access of the entire web to everyone, but by giving access to some valuable websites for free people may start to see the value and demand better infrastructure/start paying for mobile internet. I think Zuckerberg is being earnest here and not attempting to manipulate people for some malicious power grab - this seemed like a good approach (unfortunately the PR fallout was not).

In comparison it looks like google is just setting up free wifi hotspots which requires you to go to one in order to use it and is generally a lot less useful.

> The backlash was the argument that Zuckerberg was only giving access to a few websites (mostly Facebook) in order to get more control of the internet without following net neutrality. To me this seems to be an oversimplified and overly pessimistic view of what happened

I'm Indian – and if you are someone here who ordinarily can't afford any sort of Internet access, Facebook and the other e-commerce websites that were on the Free Basics platform weren't exactly the first things you'd want to access. They made zero effort to make things like government websites, local newspapers, utility websites etc. accessible through this platform. If they had done so, I bet they would have had a lot more support from the intended target audience of this platform.

Please note that they also were MITMing people's traffic using a dual-certificate model. [1] "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people." This was part of the reason people were more pessimistic about it and viewed it as a way for Facebook to cheaply acquire a lot more users and a ton of free user data about them.

Google on the other hand seems to be basically giving unrestricted access, albeit at specific spots to whatever people want to access, which is (in my opinion) way better than the sort of AOL-style walled garden Facebook was trying to create in India.

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t...

Government website access sounds like one of those things that's nice in theory, but in practice something people don't really use that often and don't care about that much.

The websites in Free Basics are websites that many people use all of the time. Though including utility type sites may have been the right call from a marketing perspective.

Not sure what the reasons were behind the MiTM - possible it was to prevent people using Free Basics to access everything by spoofing the domains and encrypting the traffic? Not everything is a conspiracy.

Definitely agree that access to everything is better, but wifi hotspots are nothing new and require you to actually go to them. Plus if you had Free Basics you could still use the wifi hotspots anyway - now those people have nothing.

With majority using Android devices, if Google were to MITM the traffic, you would never know about it.

If Chrome can include unique identifiers, what could one say of Android?

If what you are saying is true that sites that Indians want are not available on FB Basics, then FB won't get traction because it's not what Indian people want. Recall FB Basics is an on-ramp to give people a place to start so they can choose whether paying for Internet is something that's important for them.

I say let the users decide with their feet and not some government bureaucrat.

Also regarding what Google is doing, the key difference is scale. Google Wifi will be limited and reach relatively few.

So I ask is it better to have a few people served with everything or is it better to give a little to everyone?

It's generally not better to artificially prop up a single company, no.

They wouldn't have had to prop up a single company. Just let any company provide whatever data services and let the users decide what they want to use.

If the Indian government want to help their people they could focus more on stopping slavery rather than free internet access http://qz.com/695565/india-has-18-million-modern-slaves-at-l...

So - let me get this straight - if I want to provide VoIP services to India, I'd have to make deals with all my competitors - the telecoms companies - to do so? Where's their incentive to do that? What if I'm running a personal blog, or small informational site? It becomes even harder to do than today.

The Internet, as it stands, with some hiccups, allows anyone to put up a website and have the globe be able to access it. If you have to make deals with ISPs to allow their customers to see your content, or never be seen because nobody will pay for "the real Internet" as long as they have Facebook and Wikipedia and Amazon... the result of that is that the Internet becomes a means of commerce, not a means of communication. Another system by which companies and Governments and the rich can market to people, but people are silenced from criticizing them and building alternatives.

Stop twisting words - this isn't about "free Internet access", this is about free access to specific websites as chosen by the telecoms companies.

Ok - guess you have a point with that one.

Nobody is restricting anything. You can still pay for Internet. It's only a free service tier.

Don't forget that these are mostly 2G connections and so a full internet experience is likely to be a poor one. The limited services here are serving up lite versions of their products that should provide a better user experience on a 2G connection.

Honestly this model is not too different from what we had here in the US prior to iPhone. My Verizon phone had a very limited amount of Internet connectivity that was mostly restricted to Verizon's walled garden. I could pay for more connectivity but it was not a good experience. Pages were slow loading and the whole thing was more frustrating than anything else.

The issue is that it's a free service tier which ensures that certain companies will always have the upper hand - you can be guaranteed everyone can access Facebook, you can't be guaranteed everyone can access whatever the next thing is, so Facebook wins by default. Facebook also wins vs any criticism of it.

You can offer a lite version of any service on the public Internet, you don't need a free service tier.

There is chance that people can get hooked on Facebook and may not miss real internet at all since they don't even know what real internet is. There is a distinct issue with "Free", something that SaaS businesses have often struck themselves with. Once people are hooked on to the "Free", they don't really want to upgrade. A majority would try workarounds, create multiple accounts but not upgrade to pay.

I am very skeptical of a scenario in which people would find Internet important enough to upgrade to a paid plan. Quite likely, there would be a lot of free FB users who are content with limited Internet and that's the whole gist of the issue.

If, because of this walled garden people are restricted from learning about the rest of the internet, it's not much of a plus.

It's easy to be against something when you already have that something. All of the activists that defeated Free Basics are not going without internet access today.

It was Indians exercising their rights as people in a democracy that got Facebook's initiative banned. I'd say that's exactly how the world should work, instead of huge mega-corps being left to willy-nilly regulate access to one of the biggest revolutions in the past 30 years.

This argument is insidious.

I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. This argument is insidious.

I don't think I am that old that I remember the time before the internet, and why the internet worked - and why it mattered so much. The internet is not Wikipedia, or amazon or facebook. It is the substrate that allowed those systems to exist! Its what allowed geocities, ask jeeves, craigslist, dwarf fortress, ebay, kickstarter, watsi, cnn.com, wikileaks, irctc.com, pets.com, Bloomberg, google, optimizely, twitter, reddit and so many more to exist.

The internet is the system that enables any creator of content to access any consumer of content sans a gatekeeper.

That is fundamentally what the internet is about. I feel as if I am tip toeing around defining walled gardens and open internet.

FBasics is NOT the internet. It is categorically the opposite of what makes the internet work and why the internet is a force multiplier or worth passionately fighting for.

Side note: The top bureaucrat in TRAI is actually assessing the inputs provided in a clear technical process. Theres bureaucrats who are close to telecom who are pushing for freebasics. So if you want to know the truth, then you should also be ready to denounce Freebasics wholesale, the telcos are pushing to get middle man status via bureaucrats who are in the rank and file.

The NN people followed procedure, telcos are not. So its hard to take your particular accusations of Bureaucracy seriously

Thanks, this was very informative. Based on this, I think the Indians had good reason to reject FB's offering.

Its not over yet! The government has now created a Free data consultation paper, which seems to be a way for Fbasics to get in through the back door.

Having access to the entire internet sounds a whole lot more useful than access to a subset.

Not if you have to go ten miles and stand by the router in order to get it. Then it's really a comparison between no internet or a subset.

Facebook could have done both (access to everything and from anywhere) but they didn't. That's their mistake...

To clarify - convincing telecoms to offer a subset of the Internet for free on mobile devices (because it will lead to more customers) is different from telling the telecoms that they should give away complete access for free.

The second one isn't and never has been a realistic option.

Sure it has, just make the connection slow (but usable). Enough people will get hooked and want faster Internet. Aircel did this in India. There were some other programs that did similar things and were successful IIRC.

That's a good point. I wonder what the conversion rates would be comparing high speed unlimited access to a subset vs. low speed limited access to the entire network.

Would be interesting to see what people preferred if both had happened.

Wrong, after differential pricing was banned, at least two Indian telecom operators began offering free Internet access (with a data cap and speed limit, but no restrictions on which websites you can visit).

Aircel is one, I forgot the other.

Why do you think they ever could have done that?

Telecoms aren't giving out free internet access out of the goodness of their heart.

Why would you expect them or anyone to do that? Facebook is not a charity.

See my other comment above about alternate revenue models (which have worked!) for free-internate-for-everyone.

IIRC facebook wasn't even paying for the data in Free Basics (this may have changed?). They were spearheading/funding a marketing campaign, but the actual service was funded by telecom operators on the business model that a large enough fraction of people will switch to a paid plan. Facebook didn't even need to exist in this scheme (but nevertheless painted it as them being charitable)

then they shouldn't try to market internet.org like one.

This is India we're talking about, they'll figure something out. Might not be something cool like point to point IR links, maybe more like kids on bikes with a basket full of internet on HDDs.

This comment made me laugh, but the sentiment is actually painfully accurate. There is an actual term for it: 'Jugaad' [0]; resourcefully making use of anything available to get what you want.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad

>Part of this is that people who have never been online before don't understand the value of getting online.

Yes, and therefore they will understand even less, the value of the whole Internet as opposed to selected sites. So it is misleading.

>The telecoms are not going to just give free access of the entire web to everyone, but by giving access to some valuable websites for free people may start to see the value and demand better infrastructure/start paying for mobile internet. I think Zuckerberg is being earnest here and not attempting to manipulate people for some malicious power grab - this seemed like a good approach (unfortunately the PR fallout was not).

This whole thing (internet.org / Free Basics) was discussed to death in the Indian tech and even mainstream media, and also a good amount on HN (and I'm sure plenty of other general Internet discussion sites) when the topic was more current.

The arguments of the people (many Indian) objecting to it boiled down to one thing: the telecoms / FB can easily give access to the whole Internet, not just their selected sites, but for a limited amount of bandwidth per month, e.g. 500 MB or 1 GB, for the same cost as their original plan, which discriminated against all other sites than their selected ones. Then why did they not try to do that?

As I understand it, that is the gist of the argument against internet.org.

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