Facebook is no charity, and the ‘free’ in Free Basics comes at a price Who could possibly be against free internet access? This is the question Mark Zuckerberg asks in a piece for the Times of India in which he claims Facebook’s Free Basics service “protects net neutrality”. Free Basics is the rebranded Internet.org, a Facebook operation where by partnering with local telecoms firms in the …
Sorry, not even close.
Zuckerberg thinks he's Donald Trump.
(If you don't understand it... you don't know the Don.)
Its a great deal for everyone until you realize that he's the only one making money off of it.
When will people learn... T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L applies.
while of the other nine, three are scammed by Nigerians (I'm sure there are enough poor suckers out of a 1.2 billion to part with their hard-saved cash), another two pwned by a banking trojan, and the rest have been pulled out of their cardboard house into the glorious world economy of call centre sweatshops. But hey, that's "sharing" (profits and labour).
Perhaps more pertinently “for every ten (impoverished) people connected to the internet, roughly nine are not lifted out of poverty”.
Nine out of ten trains are late or do not arrive at all.
Nine out of ten patients are not cured by medical treatment.
Other comparisons are possible, of course; I am merely trying to point out that a 1 in 10 success rate is not entirely impressive.
We shouldn't be asking whether Free Basics is better than free, unlimited, unmonitored, ad-free, gluten-free, organic internet. Obviously that would be better but equally obviously that's not on offer. The question is, is Free Basics better than no internet? Because that's the choice that many people actually face.
I wouldn't want Free Basics of course but I live in the UK so, like everyone here, I am fabulously wealthy by global standards. But it seems wrong to me to ban Free Basics when for at least some people that means that they will go from having very imperfect internet to none. Why do we feel the need to make the decision on their behalf that it would be best for them to have nothing?
Notwithstanding the above, he is clearly wrong to say that this in any way supports net neutrality.
This is assuming that the target people have a device to use it on (PC/tablet/smartphone), electricity, comms in-range, literacy, a permanent dwelling etc.
I think it needs to be asked whether this solving the right problem at the right time, and if it is, any monopoly should be state-run/owned at least in the early years (although there is a quandary involved in turning down a rich funding source like FaceBook...)
Steve
"I think it needs to be asked whether this solving the right problem at the right time"
I have to disagree with this. When McVities bring out a new flavour of biscuit, we don't ask whether it is solving the right problem at the right time. We ask whether they are causing unreasonable harm to third parties. If the answer to that is no, we don't ask anything else and we let them get on with it.
Why does this offer of ads for free web access need such tight scrutiny? Does it matter that there is little evidence that internet access lifts people out of poverty? There is almost no evidence of chocolate digestives lifting people out of poverty but we're happy to let them be sold. It's a simple transaction between Facebook and it's Indian users; here's a free web connection but you can only get some parts on the internet and Facebook is the only social network you can get on it, because they are the ones paying. Why does the Indian government need to get involved with that?
There is little danger of a monopoly in internet access here. The article gives an example from Bangladesh of a competing ads-for-net-access service and most people go on to buy full access anyway. The only people who have something to lose from this are rival social networks but frankly network effects have already buried them.
@Seajay But it isn't free web access in exchange for ads, is it? It's free access to the internet services that Facebook provides (Facebook, Whatsapp, etc.) which is anticompetitive. Whilst free access to a reduced service might sound appealing, when compared to no access to a full service, the truth is that the restriction of choice that it brings is anticompetitive and so likely to harm the interests of those consumers over the long term (by disadvantaging any potential competitors).
For Zuckerberg to claim that he's protecting net neutrality just shows what a brass neck he has.
"There is almost no evidence of chocolate digestives lifting people out of poverty but we're happy to let them be sold."
WTF? What does Facebook's service in India have to do with Digestives?
The big problem as I see it is that the version of Internet in Free Basics is a restricted "Net Lite", and most crucially https is not supported. This in a time when companies such as Google are promoting the use of basic encryption. How will this ultimately help anybody?
The big problem as I see it is that the version of Internet in Free Basics is a restricted "Net Lite", and most crucially https is not supported. This in a time when companies such as Google are promoting the use of basic encryption. How will this ultimately help anybody?
Easy: it helps Zuck to rope in all the people who are the moment innocent enough to believe everything you throw at them. In essence, this is offering "free" service (I'll get to that in a minute) in exchange for a monopoly. Even Microsoft in its most evil and powerful days didn't dare try doing this that overtly (as an aside, AFAIK they did it covertly, which is why no government project actually worked between approx 1998 and 2010).
The "Free" is, of course, the usual blatant lie every US megacorp uses to rope in the idiots (it's self selecting: smarter people see through this, but as they are a minority their contribution isn't really missed). People pay with details of their personal lives and (much worse) by revealing details of their friends' lives, which is information not subject to any privacy law.
Now, the whole Zuck thing. I think it's actually a good idea he lives in an isolated, private spot now he's bought out all his neighbours. All we need now is a good fence, and a power cut.
Sorry, was daydreaming for a moment.
You can run but you can't hide. I bought a snack in K-Mart yesterday. Paid cash. Was asked for my phone number. Said no. But I can't hid from my family, friends and acquaintances, can't say, "Delete that mention of me at your picnic," since I don't even know about it. I don't have credit cards, or loyalty cards, but I'd wager that a thousand times more corporations know my name, address and phone number, than people I actually know.
<i>"There is almost no evidence of chocolate digestives lifting people out of poverty but we're happy to let them be sold"</i>
What an utterly absurd argument. Since when did McVities or any similar company start marketing a special derivative of their normal product range targetted at helping poor people in third world countries?
The point is that Zukerburg is pushing a product claiming to be intended to help poor people in third world countries access 'the internet' as a charitable gesture - however it is clear that the product is actually designed to contain such users within the Facebook walled garden, and closely monitor their activities in order to generate corporate profit and investor growth.
Is Free Basics better than no internet?
It would be easy to say, yes, but I don't think it is actually that simple. We should not view it as what's better for some but must view it as what's best for all.
If Free Basics were just a proxy service, allowing access to any and all sites, stripping javascript and compressing images to make it lightweight enough for service providers to carry for free, than I would have few problems with it. I wouldn't begrudge the proxy provider discreetly advertising that they were providing the service. I would probably use it myself; it would likely give a refreshingly speedy experience using bandwidth constrained comms.
That's not however what Facebook is proposing.
>But it seems wrong to me to ban Free Basics when for at least some people that means that they will go from having very imperfect internet to none.
It isn't Internet, it's Facebook. They are trying to use past profits to purchase the right to exclude other companies from inter connectivity.
Walled garden is hardly strong enough language here. If Apple has a walled garden, what Facebook is offering here is a prison yard with 30 foot high walls topped by two layers of razor wire and guard towers at hundred foot intervals each with two men operating 50 cal machine guns and flamethrowers!
Outrageous indeed. Yet, Tim W. used to postulate that increased access did work for such things as weather reports, fishing reports, comms in general among the farmers and hunter/gatherer societies. The difference was/is as far as I can tell... Worstall was pushing a free or limited Internet. This "service" of Zuck's wouldn't allow for what Worstall was pushing.
Isn't that a bus?
No, it's a "universal transporter" for the UK that only goes to Nottingham, Manchester and Sunderland and doesn't acknowledge the existence of Sheffield, Leeds or Newcastle.
If you own all the shops in Nottingham you'd think this was great, and be bewildered by why the UK population didn't love you for putting on for free.
[I know I take these jokes too seriously. My coat, thank you]
If Zuckerberg is feeling so generous and is so concerned about internet poverty, then why not spend the money on giving everyone in India heavily subsidised data tariffs? Or even handing out free pay-as-you-go cards?
Then those in poverty can decide for themselves what websites they visit. Or is that a freedom too far?
"Ganesh apparently used Free Basics to double his crop yields and get a better deal for his produce."
People in Kenya had similar experiences when cheap mobile phone communications with text messaging became available. This was because of an increase in communication between people over previously inconvenient distance. It's not about accessing internet websites, it's about people being able to communicate with each other anytime they want to and need to.
Grameenphone gives users free data after they watch an advert.
Well its not really free is it then. Is this a broad misconception that is accepted and I am being difficult, or should we realistically try and change people's conception of what is free, monetary value is not the only value.
"But how appealing is a taxi company that will only take you to certain destinations, or an electricity provider that will only power certain home electrical devices?"
If the alternative is no access to car travel or no power at all, why would that not be appealing? When it comes down to it, that's the whole point - such a scheme may not be good for society, competition, and so on, but it relies on being extremely good for the individual recipients to get people to accept it. Note that it's the government complaining about it, not mass protests from those being offered free but limited internet.
"Note that it's the government complaining about it, not mass protests from those being offered free but limited internet."
They don't give a hoot what internet is, what FB is, who Zuckerberg is, what net neutrality is and what differential pricing is.
So it has to be the government and the activists.
What can one say when all 3 sides are morally, technically and economically wrong?
Is demand infinitely varied and growing an unbelievable rates? Yes.
Is supply developing and obsoleting rapidly? Yes.
Do any of the current models solve for these two realities? No.
So what is the optimal competitive model that provides fast internet free everywhere (FIFE). Of course nothing is free in life; something we now know after 20 years of a fools promise of the "free" internet.
People who analyze and contribute to this debate should understand how the term "free" developed in the 1990s. They would then know that net neutrality is a contrivance and fiction and that free had more to do with "unencumbered and exposed" and flat rate, than truly free. It came about because of equal access and horizontally scaled protocols and layers.
But everything, every layer, every boundary point has an associated capex and opex and for investment to occur and new technology to be constantly introduced (ie a sustainable ecosystem) a return needs to be generated.
Nor does that return need to come at the expense of our privacy or curiosity or desire to grow and change.
It can be done if we (regulators, trade management, capitalists, academics and users) support and mandate interconnection out to the edge and embrace the notion of market driven internetwork settlements that clear supply and demand efficiently and rapidly north-south and east-west in the informational stack. The result will be pricing that reflects marginal cost across all demand curves. Marginal cost in a rapidly evolving model is never zero, regardless of what most assume about the digital economy.
The result will be affordable, fast and secure internet for everyone regardless of income levels.
After all the promise of digital networks and digital disruption of the analog real world, is that things should be cheaper and more accessible everywhere to everyone.
This approach violates the tenets and principles of all 3 parties in the debate: Facebook's siloed ad model, net neutrality's unsustainable settlement free model, and the regulated monopolies expensive vertically integrated and balkanized edge access model. That's how all 3 parties to a debate can be wrong and on shaky ground.
Michael Elling
Why doesn't he just use some of his massive fortune to build a proper network and give everyone free, unrestricted internet access? Build a massive grid of 3G* cell phone towers connected through microwave links and powered by solar/wind.
*3G because the equipment is quite cheap compared to 4G while providing enough speed for compressed internet traffic. Plus cell providers are flush with 3G cell phones that customers have traded in. Or maybe just create a purpose-built phone for such a market: replace the back-plate with a solar panel, make the OS very simple and easy to use, use a custom-built SoC with built-in hardware compression, a mechanical keyboard, and a modest resources.
This little detail, which I hadn't heard before, is the most damning in my opinion. No Flash, JS or larges images, etc... Those aren't unreasonable limitations for a free low-bandwidth service. But encryption... That is the basics. Nobody in their right mind would consider doing online shopping without it, for instance. Or banking, or any kind of government site that handles private info.
It also makes you wonder about Facebook's motives for wanting to keep everything cleartext, and none that come to mind are good.
He's not being charitable. He just wants a billion more people to monitor with his data mining/selling algorithms and anthropological research that he can profit from and exploit in tomorrow's technology.
Apple and Google have done this and its no coincidence that they are all the biggest corporations on Earth. It's all about exploitation and profit.
If he really wants to help them he should open schools and universities, offer research for farming, access to clean water, pollution control, human rights, birth control, etc. But he won't because there's no profit in that.
Charity indeed. His kid is going to inherit a fucked up world that he Suckerusallberg contributed to. Doesn't matter his kid will grow up sheltered and rich beyond imagination and will never get a chance to see a starving baby with flies stuck to their eyelids.
Yep, Zuck's being completely disingenuous claiming this is altruism, FB ain't a charity and this is a business strategy. That said, the author isn't exactly against a bit of spin either: "limited only to Facebook, Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and a few other carefully selected sites and services" - commentards should check out what those "few" are before making up their minds whether or not it's a bad thing to offer free access to these sites to them. And follow the link to see how high Indian internet penetration levels and growth rates are.
I am an Indian.
This is the list of websites that was available on Free Basics the day it was suspended by TRAI -
Faceboo
Facebook Messenge
Jagran Josh
Astrology
Hungama
AP Speaks
Malaria No More
Facts for Life (Unicef)
Social Blood
BabyCenter & MAMA
Reuters Market Lite
Aaj Tak
AccuWeather
Amar Ujala
BBC News
IBN Live
Daily Bhaskar
Dictionary.com
Jagran
Maalai Malar
Maharastra Times
Translator
wikiHow
Wikipedia
Basics of Internet
BabaJob
Bing Search
OLX
ESPN Cricinfo
Nike Foundation (Girl Effect)
UN Women (iLearn)
Any one that says the poor in India will benefit from these sites doesn't have rudimentary knowledge about India or is simply joking.
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