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Comment by tecoholic | Hacker News Reader

> ever wondered why Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't

This is absolutely wrong. FB did that in SE Asia. But in India, this led to the creation of IIRC Internet Freedom Foundation which fights for Internet freedom to this day and established a strong foundation for net neutrality . FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.

But the broader point stands. Whatsapp, Youtube, Sharechat …etc., is internet for a huge percentage of the population.

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> FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.

FB to this date still owns the internet.org domain, which was literally their marketing at the time. Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.

While I agree that the courts decided against this at some point, it was around 13+ years too late, because a generation of mobile users got hooked already.

Meta even went as far as deleting their internet.org website from the web archive, all years result in a 404 now. Interesting.

> Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.

Interesting to learn. In China, mobile carriers also have similar deals with huge content providers. You can buy data plans with a discounted rate specifically for several YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok like apps.

That internet.org "generation of mobile users" was before smartphones became ubiquitous and Jio (cheap connectivity) came into picture, and so is negligible.

It wasn't even successful in its own time - the ISPs that partnered with FB for internet.org at that time got submerged soon after. Absolutely nothing of that legacy remains. You will find it difficult to catch netizens in India who even remember FB's Free Basics.

GP must be surrounded by Iphone users too. Most smartphones in India are Android and they all have Gmail and use other Google apps.

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