And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse?
Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc.
You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation to decide which sites millions of people should and should not be able to visit.
This is to say nothing of the next whatsapp or facebook - this plan is obviously about preventing competition.
You say they use the internet for communication first, is it any wonder Facebook/WhatsApp wants to ensure they control what mediums of communication are accessible throughout India?
What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?
> And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse?
Nope, just saying that non-English Indian language internet sucks. Yes it gets better when more and more people are using it, but that still doesn't change the fact that millions of people currently don't have internet in a form which they can use to make their lives better.
> What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?
Same thing you're going to say to that 18 year old kid in the year 2030 whose life could have been different had he lived in a more connected India.
So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity?
Frankly, I dont see a scenario where the third world remains unconnected through 2030, including India. There is much profit to be made connecting Billions (with a b) of people to the world economy; far too much profit that something as insignificant as running cable will forever keep them unconnected.
14 years of technological advancement. What radios do you think the iPhone 14s will have built in? Are you willing to bet an entire country's access to the (actual) internet that it will be the same radios we have available today?
> So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity? <
Nope, not at all. If I took half of all your wealth, does that mean you'd now be completely poor? No, you'd be poorer and it will harm you.
Even though the poor in India will eventually get Internet (let's hope so) now they will get Internet a lot later and a lot fewer of them would it.
I was lucky enough to get Internet access during the 1990s in India, but there are so many people I wish had Internet. I don't expect them all to become techies like me, but I definitely think it will make their lives a LOT better rather than waiting for the government to do something.
This is what government's services gets you (it's a link to a Hindi comedy show from 1990s which satirizes how many years you had to wait to get a telephone line).
>>Same thing you're going to say to that 18 year old kid in the year 2030 whose life could have been different had he lived in a more connected India.
There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few days.
You seem to be suggesting that another drug, which can relieve the patient of some of the pains for the next hour, but is sure to kill the patient in the next few months be administered to the patient immediately.
I don't think it's going to kill the patient having a choice of only Facebook and WhatsApp to talk to each other without paying for minutes or SMS. Or indeed enhance their freedom of choice when they decide to stick to SMS because it's good enough and cheaper than the internet.
I started using AOL when its walled garden tried (not unconvincingly at the time) to pass itself off as the entire internet. 15 years later I can't even remember the last time I visited a core AOL property.
> There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few days.<
We fundamentally disagree upon the nature of net neutrality. I do not believe net neutrality is a good thing, and getting rid of it would be a good thing.
The fundamental fact is that all bits aren't created equal. Facebook wants to pay for some bits by attaching the economic value of future customer, and that is fundamentally a justified thing.
In America T-mobile recently launched Binge On program under which Netflix and Youtube won't count against a monthly data plan. People on HN are hell bent on claiming that somehow this is a bad thing, but the fact is, for most people this makes their lives better.
I'm surprised that TRAI (an organization which should be gotten rid of completely according to me) caved in to Net Neutrality proponents. In future you'll see when in America Net Neutrality will be removed and how much benefit it brings to the people.
>>Facebook wants to pay for some bits by attaching the economic value of future customer, and that is fundamentally a justified thing.
Facebook realizes there is very little value they can add to whatever they have done so far. So now the only way to be safe from competition is to create a monopoly and prevent others from even getting a chance from competing with them.
>>People on HN are hell bent on claiming that somehow this is a bad thing
It is.
>>for most people this makes their lives better.
Its the first step these companies take before they start charging for VoIP calls.
>>I'm surprised that TRAI (an organization which should be gotten rid of completely according to me) caved in to Net Neutrality proponents.
I'm only surprised it took them this late, after this much activism.
> What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?
How about saying to him that he should make his WhatsApp competitor work well on feature phones and low bandwidth connections, and then submit it for inclusion with Free Basics?
Free Basics is open to almost any site that can meet a few technical requirements, which are basically that it works well on feature phones and in low bandwidth scenarios and when going through a proxy. There are also some non-technical requirements, such as giving permission to use their logos in Free Basics marketing. [1]
Yeah Facebook says so. How many times have companies (even Facebook) said something and something entirely different.
Facebook still reserves right to not allow you on their service. In addition they want ability to see and even modify content going between you and the customer.Facebook can actually say that they can't accept you because of reason X while they actually want no competition to Whatsapp or Facebook
And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse?
Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc.
You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation to decide which sites millions of people should and should not be able to visit.
This is to say nothing of the next whatsapp or facebook - this plan is obviously about preventing competition.
You say they use the internet for communication first, is it any wonder Facebook/WhatsApp wants to ensure they control what mediums of communication are accessible throughout India?
What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?