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Comment by wyxuan | Hacker News Reader

I don't really know why Google, a company, is doing what should be done by the government with no clear benefit to the bottom line. This is not to say they shouldn’t do this, but if you look at it that way, it shouldn't be surprising at all.

If they really wanted to help they probably should have teamed up with the government to ensure that there is government buy in to the program.

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I think Google is an insecure advertising company. It's as if Phillip Morris International was trying to develop solar panels and vegan food products to make everyone forget that most of their revenue comes from tobacco.

Would have made it harder for the public to hate big tobacco if they had been putting their names behind good stuff for all the years they had insane profits. Might even have kept regulators from decimating their business.

Google learned from mistakes of the past.

> Phillip Morris International

You mean Altria. They changed their name, for some strange reason.

Funny how it is almost like Altruism.

Google is not a person. It can't feel anything. It is also composed of several teams, so it's perfectly possible for Google to look both to the left and to the right at the same time, before the higher ups decide to do some spring cleaning and shut down projects that don't align with their bigger picture.

It's pretty cheap and offers branding, data, ad impressions, and the opportunity to upsell other Google services. The government is very ineffectual in these areas, if it even exists beyond a name. These services will never happen without big companies starting them.

At least Google tried, and it looks like they're able to hand it off to another company that can keep it running now.

More people using web -> more ad revenue for Google

"Commoditize your complements." Covered by Joel Spolsky in an oldy but goody: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ (2002!)

Small companies grow their market share. Big companies grow their market.

I guess that didn’t happen here.

The South African government would have to be capable of managing some kind of project competently, which they demonstrate they are not able to do on a regular basis.

> with no clear benefit to the bottom line.

I dont think they are doing it for the bottom line. Google also offers free wifi on many railway stations in India where lot of poor Indians get to use Internet for the first time.

It's good PR but also that automatically becomes a branding opportunity where lot of people think internet means google and creates a trust factor in the mind.

That's also being shutdown according to Indian media. Railtel is going to take over the WiFi in India.

Did not know that, just read some articles about it now, Google is blaming very cheap data plans in India.

Government is a corrupt single party system in practice. Can't even keep the power on and the water system is in trouble. They would need a World Bank bailout for the Internet in a few years.

Google needs all the good PR it can get, these days. I'd be willing to pour money into ventures like this if I was in their position, too.

Google has been working on WiFi projects for a long time. They have enough good PR outside HN, no need to trivialize when a company takes up a good project.

No need to not call out PR marketing when you see it in the wild.

It's fine praise a company that does good, but don't act as if these companies are doing it out of pure kindness of their heart when they have legal shareholders to account for.

With India, they did this. They collaborated with RailTel, but I assume that was more logistical then anything else.

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