I was just having a chat with a few people in a few Indian villages which got connected to internet in last 1-2 years. A few of my observations:
1. They think FB/Whatsapp is NOT internet. Internet is meant to be accessed through browser. So we already have an illusioned world.
2. 'Internet' is only meant for the elite.
3. Whatsapp/FB serve the same purpose that text messages did. They use FB/Whatsapp to save on cost of sending sms.
4. Their biggest issue is that they don't have jobs. Cities are very far away. The ONLY employment opportunity available to young people (including college graduates) is farming!!
5. I tried to quiz them on how FB/Whatsapp has helped in creating jobs/economic activity/improving farming. Couldn't get a lot of answers. (not saying FB cannot help)
6. They can afford to pay for cheap data packs to get access to FB/Whatsapp (about $2-4 per month). All the young people in the villages have Whatsapp/smart phones. Although this may not stand for the poorest of the poor.
It is going to be very hard to decide if banning free basics is going to create more jobs for the poor or not. But I think the basic premise of the regulator's decision is giving Indian startups a fair chance. The regulator is only trying to create a fair battle field for startups. The poor need Indian entrepreneurs more than anything else. The regulator is only trying to help entrepreneurship in India.
But one thing is clear, FB isn't being entirely altruistic (for obvious reasons), but the same cannot be said for Indian regulators. I believe the regulators have ONLY the interest of the people in mind.
Why isn't facebook running this programme in USA? There are 50 million Americans without internet. Although 50 million is not as big as 600 million Indians without internet, it is still bigger than populations of many countries Facebook is running Free Basics in. The Americans without internet are usually old and poor and internet connectivity can do a lot for them. A lot of these people cannot afford the internet.
My only question...would Americans think it would be wise to destroy Net Neutrality?? Just asking. Perhaps someone should try and get Facebook to start this in USA.
It's not a problem in US doesn't mean the initiative will not be welcomed there. Toll free phone numbers exist and are used extensively in the US, Free Basics can work on similar lines. Obviously, introducing the initiative will raise questions on violation of net neutrality.
I figured out that people bond with other people better by engaging in 'wasteful activities'. I figured out the importance of "fitting in". It is funny but I couldn't realize it in the first 24 years of my life. I had never needed to make others happy. At work, I would go about my stuff and didn't have to bother about what others thought (as long as my work was being done). In College, I could simply ace exams and didn't have to worry about what other people thought about me. People around me have always engaged in things that seemed excessively wasteful to me (going to movies, partying, drinking). And I was happy in my own little world.
Things changed when we started a company...a B2B company. We started selling at the beginning of this year and I found myself in a salesman's role (lucky me). I couldn't say no to meeting people, I couldn't say no to events, I couldn't say no to going to bars after events, I couldn't say no to partying, I had to engage in everything that I thought was wasteful. I was awkward and dumb at times but it helped me bond with people. I kept away from it for far too long, but now I try to force myself to meet people.
I know this is nothing new to most of you. But it was revelation for me. In startups, sometimes you have to force yourself to go against your very nature.
I'd define it as not personally fun or entertaining.
I don't go to the movies. I'd rather read a book. I don't go to parties. I'd rather work on my calligraphy. I don't drink - not even lightly - but I see heavy drinking as a complete waste of time (literally blacking out or not having memory of most of the previous night).
If I ever have the feeling of "I'd rather be doing something else" then chances are what I'm doing is a waste of my time. I should be doing that something else.
Reaching out to poor people is a poor propaganda excuse to make sure the regulator doesn't come after them.
Free Basics is being advertised in metropolitan areas, not poor villages. Why waste money advertising it on TV Channels which only the elites watch? Poor people cannot afford subscriptions to those channels. Yet they're running Free Basics ads on those channels. Why don't they limit Free Basics to first time FB sign ups? Why are they targeting people who already have internet connections? Majority of people who will sign up for Free Basics are the ones who already have internet. That is exactly what Zuck wants. No advertising money to be made in remote villages. If it was...Facebook would be in the villages...it is NOT!
The fact is that Facebook is not committed to Net Neutrality.
Are metros devoid of poverty? It is the first group of poor people who might be aware of Internet but do not have economic power to attain it. If I start something like FB basics, I will start with Urban poor, not rural poor. Advertising on Channels, I do not have much knowledge and you may have a point there.
Even in First World, people are cutting cord and using their mobile phones as sole Internet connection, that Internet is capped, has priority traffic etc.
I prefer net neutrality, but am willing to give some exceptions esp. when catering to lower economic spectrum, who themselves cannot exchange money for Internet connection.
I hope this turns into a more permanent decision. Indians need to keep sending emails to TRAI. Indian government should be worried about handing over private details of Indians to the NSA on a silver platter. But even without that risk, Free Basics can evolve into something disastrous for Indian startup scene and jobs/innovation.
Lets look at two extreme scenarios.
->India without net neutrality: Everyone has free Facebook. "Free basics" didn't help in advancing electrification of the country but it did provide free facebook/wikipedia to everyone. So 30% of the country is still in dark. But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer. A young founder launches a new education app to teach reading/writing to poor villagers. But she first needs to get a 'license' from facebook. Facebook doesn't think it is a good idea for its users to 'waste' time on other services instead of watching ads on FB, so it declines. Startups don't receive as much funding because of the 'licensing' issues and there aren't as many Indian tech companies as there could've been. News is censored by Facebook and Facebook can now influence Indian politics. 100,000 fewer jobs were created because the Indian tech scene didn't take off.
->India with net neutrality: 50% of the country cannot pay for internet. They still don't have access to internet. They use other forms of communication to get their daily, unfiltered news. The startup scene in India is growing at its natural pace and the culture has become more innovative. In another 10-15 years everyone will have internet. 100's of thousands of poor were lifted out of poverty due to tech jobs in India.
One is a short term 'fix' which ruins the future. Another is a little bit harder but provides for a better future.
> But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer.
The majority of the content on my Facebook feed is links to external websites. I'm skeptical of this argument that poor people will be forever satisfied with just chatting and browsing Facebook and will never upgrade to full internet.
In several other Asian countries (e.g. the Philipines, Indonesia, Thailand), a much larger percentage say they are on Facebook than the portion that say they are on Internet [1]. Of cause they can't be on Facebook without being on Internet, but those users have no idea that Facebook require internet, and that it usually means that they also have access to other Internet services.
A lot of users in these countries answer yes to the question "Facebook is the internet", and claim they never follows links out of Facebook. Of cause these answers reveal widespread ignorance, and it may be that they don't know if they leave Facebook or not, but it does mean that Facebook is the gateway to Internet for them. Thus a lot of users will stay satisfied with internet.org, especially if that is what most people in their local communities use.
> The majority of the content on my Facebook feed is links to external websites.
Not sure if you are joking, but with features like "Instant Articles", Facebook has every reason to keep people on facebook.com rather than sending them to external websites.
When you are locked down in a walled garden that allows messaging (within the garden) and every other service is blocked, people will simply believe that walled garden is all there is.
> I'm skeptical of this argument that poor people will be forever satisfied with just chatting and browsing Facebook and will never upgrade to full internet.
It's not just Facebook that's a part of Free Basics, it is Facebook, Wikipedia, and a bunch of other services that are "approved" by Facebook. So the chance is greater that people will become used to these free services (not just Facebook) being perceived as the Internet.
Nobody has provided the tiniest shred of evidence for this being true. Unless Indians are dramatically different from other Facebook users, and don't post many external links, everyone in the free service will be bombarded with what they're missing.
I checked my feed right now. First 20 posts: 8 are content created on FB (text, pictures snapped for uploading, etc), 12 are shares of external content. Hopefully you are right but don't underestimate a fact: the have not (the ones in the walled garden) won't see any of those content if they don't have friends on the open internet. And even if so, FB might choose not to show them content that they can't see anyway.
>But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer.
I think you underestimate people's intelligence. More so, if they only want to use Facebook, or don't want to use anything else enough to pay for it, what's the problem?
>A young founder launches a new education app to teach reading/writing to poor villagers. But she first needs to get a 'license' from facebook.
Only if Facebook is the only ISP, which could only happen if government passed a law or regulation that made that so. Or if people are not interested in anything else, in which case they should not be forced to pay for anything else.
>They use other forms of communication to get their daily, unfiltered news.
Are you implying they wouldn't without net neutrality?
>The startup scene in India is growing at its natural pace and the culture has become more innovative
Not, it isn't. It would be more innovative if it was forced to compete with Facebook.
In Brazil where net neutrality is sort of in place the only thing that happened was people being deprived of "free WhatsApp + Facebook" mobile data plans (which didn't forbid them from acquiring a more expensive plan to access other things as you suggest it would!). Now you just have to pay expensive prices even if you just want to chat with your friends.
> I think you underestimate people's intelligence. More so, if they only want to use Facebook, or don't want to use anything else enough to pay for it, what's the problem?
Would people have moved to Facebook from Myspace if they had to pay $10 per month just to access it? Would people have tried Google if they had to pay $10 per month to access it?? This is a tax on innovation. The innovation from big players doesn't get taxed while a founder would need to innovate 100x instead of the current 10x to make people move. Founders have limited resources. Creating 100x innovation will take a lot more time than getting people to move to 10x innovation, making some money and innovating further. What do you think this would do to the angels in India who have recently started investing in startups rather than gold/land/stocks? They would go back to land/stocks.
> Only if Facebook is the only ISP, which could only happen if government passed a law or regulation that made that so.
Facebook intends to use data services (3g,4g) to deploy its free basics. There aren't many companies providing data services because of obvious spectrum limitations.
>Are you implying they wouldn't without net neutrality?
They primarily get information on radio and newspapers. If those sources are corrupt, lets not add another corrupt source into the mix.
>Not, it isn't. It would be more innovative if it was forced to compete with Facebook.
Really? There was a time in India when you had to be REALLY REALLY REALLY innovative (in many different ways) to merely get a license to start a business from the govt. We called it 'license raj'. You know what it did. It killed all the innovation. You have to let smallest of innovations thrive for them to grow into bigger ones!!
>Now you just have to pay expensive prices even if you just want to chat with your friends.
Better than the possibility of being stuck with that same 'chat' for the next 20 years. India needs jobs more than 'free chat'. Jobs will come from Indian companies. And Indian companies cannot thrive unless the field is even. Plus, its not about Indian vs Foreign. If a small guy produces 2x innovation, his innovation should triumph over facebook. Facebook's coffers shouldn't prevent progress happening in the world. That 2x innovation, if given a chance will grow to 200x.
>>But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer.
>I think you underestimate people's intelligence. More so, if they only want to use Facebook, or don't want to use anything else enough to pay for it, what's the problem?
I think this is totally possible, not at 50% though. Imagine the people who have never used Internet before and are not-so-educated. If Free basics is what they are going to use for the first time, it's possible for them to think that what they get to use through that, is all of the Internet.
Not, it isn't. It would be more innovative if it was forced to compete with Facebook.
Just FYI, startups in India already go head-to-head with Facebook and Amazon. What Free Basics does is make them compete for preferential treatment by network operators, which changes the whole game.
Facebook is asking its users in India if 'you support free internet to poor people?' and then giving them a text-box and a submit button to write an email to TRAI in support for Free Basic.
Infact it only costs 0.01$/GB (probably less with peering) to offer access to the entire internet. Suppose a 50 MB daily data cap is provided to users and there are 50 million users, that's 50000$/day i.e. 18.25$ million/year, certainly not impossible for Facebook (and probably data costs can be cut down 50% with better peering). And I would not mind the government funding a portion of this.
Facebook rather spend that money on Billboards, advertising "Free Basics". Facebook should come clear on what it is gaining from "Free Basics" instead of acting as an angelic, non-profit. Or is all the money they're spending to advertise 'free basics' in India for a non-profit motive?? Should mention the profit motives in their ads.
Indians were taken aback by the amount of money Facebook chose to spend to advertise Free Basics. Premium Billboards, 2 page advertisements on major publications, other ads...They must have a plan to make profit out of all this spending. They should come clean on it in their ads.
seriously, todays front page of a leading Kolkata newspaper had a large two page advertisements of free basics, citing "What Net neutrality activists wont tell you" : http://imgur.com/a/hb3nt.
Assuming they are honest, I don't get their argument. If most people are paying for the internet, they why do they need Free Basics in the first place? An internet connection costs a fraction of the hardware cost, or is embedded in the hardware subscription.
So you can either afford hardware and internet, or you can't afford internet in which case you also can't afford the hardware, so the free internet is useless.
Assuming their motives are truly altruistic, making internet free doesn't make any sense!
India desperately needs faster internet rather than free internet. If we assume even the cheapest hardware, say a laptop costing less than 300$, the internet costs in a range of 7$ to 45$ a month (inr to usd conversion estimates, might vary). The faster connection u want, the more u have to pay. Sadly, the avg internet speed of our country is at the very bottom of global rankings. If they really are altruistic, they should provide faster internet in cheaper deals.
1c/GB is a tenth of the price of datacenter bandwidth, a hundredth of residential DSL or cable access bandwidth and a thousandth the price of mobile bandwidth.
The purpose of the limitation isn't to save peering costs, it's to ensure users click on Facebook's ads and compensate them for the costs of providing cellular access.
witty_username may have been exaggerating, but it's worth pointing out that this is substantially cheaper than prepaid internet access is available in the US. I pay $10/GB/week, which works out to something like $30/GB as I'm not trying to finish the GB/week allotment. This may be somewhat unusual in the US, and I'm assuming you prepay for a set amount of data, rather than data/time.
Anyway, I came to posit a different question. How much would it cost if it were a nonprofit that provides the internet access? What kind of margins are made on top of the prepaid data plans we're using?
If you compare Airtel (Private) vs BSNL[1] (government) one, the pricing is almost same.
In poorer regions Indian government tries to subsidise it as well, and ends up with loses every year (barring 2015), so I guess we can approximate it to a non-profit org?
Sorry, I mean their DC<->internet price. Most of the bandwidth costs are in the last mile connectivity. In any case they are paying for mobile towers; I am just saying that the incremental cost of providing full internet access is not very large. But you are right my figures are wrong.
> But she first needs to get a 'license' from facebook.
How is this different from the iPhone and the closed app store? If people don't like closed app store eco-system of the iPhone, they buy Android. Similarly, if the poor don't like Free Basics, they will opt out of it for a competitor.
Also, the licensing thing will be less of an issue, if Facebook commits to a transparent, fast, and preferably automated process of gaining their zero-rating.
This isn't like the free AOL discs, but as if AOL were free but never allowed people to access anything other than a free encyclopedia, medical information, and their own content and services.
A major reason Facebook is doing this is that they see an investment opportunity. In some countries the majority of people are using the internet, but can't distinguish the internet from Facebook. That is any techno-monopolist's wet dream, and it is exactly what they are going for across the entire developing world.
I know for a fact that some people working at Facebook think they are doing good and being charitable by supporting internet.org. It is extremely hard to convince anyone who stands to gain from internet.org that this could be a net negative for the people on the receiving end. I've been called arrogant and out of touch for arguing this. To me, it is disturbing that this is seen as a world-changing act of charity, but some people clearly feel that way. I'm relieved that regulators are standing up against Facebook, and I hope they stand strong, but I have doubts. We may be losing the free internet and weakly accepting the rule of a new emperor.
>This isn't like the free AOL discs, but as if AOL were free but never allowed people to access anything other than a free encyclopedia, medical information, and their own content and services.
AOL tried that (except for the free part) and couldn't pull it off. In the early days of AOL there was no way to get on the internet.
I doubt Indians will be satisfied with a tiny walled garden, even if it means they have to pay a little to get out.
->India without net neutrality: Everyone has free Facebook. "Free basics" didn't help in advancing electrification of the country but it did provide free facebook/wikipedia to everyone. So 30% of the country is still in dark. But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer. A young founder launches a new education app to teach reading/writing to poor villagers. But she first needs to get a 'license' from facebook. Facebook doesn't think it is a good idea for its users to 'waste' time on other services instead of watching ads on FB, so it declines. Startups don't receive as much funding because of the 'licensing' issues and there aren't as many Indian tech companies as there could've been. News is censored by Facebook and Facebook can now influence Indian politics. 100,000 fewer jobs were created because the Indian tech scene didn't take off.
->India with net neutrality: 50% of the country cannot pay for internet. They still don't have access to internet. They use other forms of communication to get their daily, unfiltered news. The startup scene in India is growing at its natural pace and the culture has become more innovative. In another 10-15 everyone will have internet. 100's of thousands of poor were lifted out of poverty due to tech jobs in India.
One is a short term 'fix' which ruins the future. Another is a little bit harder but provides for a better future.
The whole Business Model build up on the freebases cannot work if they provide free access to the whole internet.
Considering that we are talking about Facebook here. Things could go very wrong once it is implemented. It should be killed without second thought.
I think their "free basics" is geared towards people who already have internet. They are not exactly going to remote villages and electrifying them.
Imagine how hard it would be for Indian startups when you need a 'license' from Facebook to deploy your app to your target market. The poor will have free facebook, but they won't have tech jobs. I've seen thousands of really poor guys being alleviated out of poverty due to Indian tech businesses which could grow because competition was fair. Tomorrow when launching an app means getting a license from facebook, it would be much harder!!
And it is a fair argument to make that other big boys will jump in to give some competition to facebook's "zero rating" but what about the small guys??
Corruption is illegal in America as well. Not all versions of corruption but the majority is not legal nor is it tolerated, in general. There is still old-boy corruption but I'm not sure that doesn't happen anywhere.
1. They think FB/Whatsapp is NOT internet. Internet is meant to be accessed through browser. So we already have an illusioned world.
2. 'Internet' is only meant for the elite.
3. Whatsapp/FB serve the same purpose that text messages did. They use FB/Whatsapp to save on cost of sending sms.
4. Their biggest issue is that they don't have jobs. Cities are very far away. The ONLY employment opportunity available to young people (including college graduates) is farming!!
5. I tried to quiz them on how FB/Whatsapp has helped in creating jobs/economic activity/improving farming. Couldn't get a lot of answers. (not saying FB cannot help)
6. They can afford to pay for cheap data packs to get access to FB/Whatsapp (about $2-4 per month). All the young people in the villages have Whatsapp/smart phones. Although this may not stand for the poorest of the poor.
It is going to be very hard to decide if banning free basics is going to create more jobs for the poor or not. But I think the basic premise of the regulator's decision is giving Indian startups a fair chance. The regulator is only trying to create a fair battle field for startups. The poor need Indian entrepreneurs more than anything else. The regulator is only trying to help entrepreneurship in India.
But one thing is clear, FB isn't being entirely altruistic (for obvious reasons), but the same cannot be said for Indian regulators. I believe the regulators have ONLY the interest of the people in mind.