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Comment by tensor | Hacker News Reader

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

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