Internet.org: A Facebook connectivity lab project

Because it sounds cool. Waiting for the market to fix things is boring when you could "hack" them instead.

"Why do we convince our selves that these types of drastic measures are worth the capital we expend to make them happen."

My cynical guess? Wealthy people with liberal guilt. As for the companies, more eyeballs == more money.

I agree with you. It's hard to force this. If the underlying infrastructure is lacking (clean water, food, medicine, clothing, safety) then the internet isn't going to take hold.

If the core infra is already in place, they're likely already working on bringing the net in.

The initial result is that gangs will go around stealing in masses by force and sell it for profit, as you pointed out - the demand need to be there, the basic social infrastructure need to be there. Look at china, it's exploding with cellphones because the society is catching up to modern advances. I think there is better ways to do good in the world rather than force a technology, like food, water and shelter. There are +800 million that are starving, fix that first!

same here, looks like this was not release ready yet.. whatever it is.

Apart from 1min of marketing bullshit the move shows (15s) solar powered drones used for the same purpose as Google loon http://www.google.com/loon/

open via incognito, probably your ad-blocker (disconnect.me in my case) kills the page.