While the David's won this round, it was against an opponent (or group of) which made several tactical errors.

We need to build a more lasting institution to prepare in advance for future papers, have lists of people it can reach out to, and manage the hidden minutiae required to combat these issues.

Because Next time it may not be Facebook, it may be the GoI itself, or reliance.

> We need to build a more lasting institution to prepare in advance for future papers, have lists of people it can reach out to, and manage the hidden minutiae required to combat these issues.

Which is exactly what we will do.

And does #savetheInternet have or want branches outside India. It's not a local problem? Is there somewhere I can go and lend support ?

Eagerly awaited. I wouldn't be surprised if something else comes up around May, or December again this year.

Even in the US we see people finally getting tired of the candidates pushed by Big Money, and many appear to have woken up and reject the candidates pushed by Big Money by default - like they won't even give them a second look.

I think this trend will only grow in the future, and I hope it grows enough and it gathers enough political will to actually drastically limit Big Money influence (that includes limiting corporate lobbying), and to move to a proportional representation system, like what 90 other countries in the world have.

There's a reason why there are like 40% Independents in the US - they are sick and tired of the two existing parties, but those two parties are making it virtually impossible for them to support anyone else. So either they are forced to vote for a Democrat or Republican (because we wouldn't that other monster to win) or they just refuse to vote.

Not to mention that for Congress elections, people virtually have no say in who's elected because of gerrymandering. At least 85% of the seats this year will be safe for those who already own them. So no wonder people think "why vote?" The system is rigged against them by design. This is no democracy.

Can you imagine if they actually had a choice for various other parties that could be guaranteed to be represented in Congress? We'd probably see the Democratic and Republican parties die off pretty quickly (within 10-15 years) if they wouldn't seriously reform themselves.

Lessig actually aggregated many of the extremely important reforms that the US needs to restore its democracy, under his "Citizen Equality Act", but too bad the "Democratic" party never even gave him a chance, and kept changing the rules mid-game to excuse itself for eliminating him.

His plan includes national election day, automatic registration, proportional representation, lobbying reform and citizen funded elections:

https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/

I'm an expat and wanted to vote in absentia for the presidential election (which you can do) when it was first legal for me to do so. The procedure isn't too hard, but I decided it was not worth it when I remembered that my official "home state" is a blue state, and the electoral college means that my vote won't matter :|

Fair point and you can look at examples elsewhere in politics and business. TPP is a great example of something that went through iteration after iteration before finally being rammed through.

CISPA and its predecessors were similar. The entities with a vested interest in having these things come to pass have essentially endless coffers to take the long view. All they need is to succeed once whereas we need to succeed in stopping these things each and every time. It is a war of attrition.

How do we focus instead on changes required for a better internet?

The internet was originally designed (imagined?) to route around bad actors, congestion, censorship. If it no longer does that (and there's some truth to say it never has) then we've failed to build in the necessary incentives for that to happen.

This is a ridiculously hard question to answer correctly.

At best I can point out that theres 2 parts to this - the internet infrastructure and the regulatory frameworks.

Till now, we've worked without having to explicitly state the philosophical underpinnings of the web, nor convert that into a law/legal framework.

The slow lumbering leviathans have finally caught up to the nimble minnows of the 2000s. Telecom operators and other incumbents, including governments now know how the web works, and how to make it work for them (to the detriment of the commons).

We can limit the damage of the second, by help build and maintain transparent regulatory frameworks, and in particular - be able to mobilize rebuttals or examples to future papers released by TRAI, or other GoI institutions.

Whats learned here and other countries over the next 5 years, can be used to push for a stronger global framework.

It does not look as simple to me. From what I hear it's other VC funded e-commerce companies who were most vocal against FB. Using their foreign investors' money to to heavy discount and simultaneously blocking smaller companies does not seem anything right/decent or progressive.

VC-funded companies actually wanted differential pricing (which allows FreeBasics). Flipkart, for example, signed up as a partner for Airtel Zero.

Among the 700 startups who signed the petition against differential pricing, there are very few big names in startups - because they stand to gain from differential pricing.

> progressive

How is it progressive? This is conservative (not wanting change).

Can you consider that the change wound have been (in utilitarian terms) detrimental?

When someone is a progressive, it does not require that everyone actually thinks what they advocate for is actually progress. There are always two sides to every change.

In that light, many people would consider Free Basics to be progress, and as such those people are progressives. Those not wanting change are the conservatives.