
Marc Andreessen just offended 1B Indians with a single tweet - ravenkat
http://thenextweb.com/in/2016/02/10/marc-andreessen-just-offended-1-billion-indians-with-a-single-tweet/
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ravenkat
I have a great respect for Marc Andreessen who have invested in great tech
companies at early stage and they are part of my daily life. I have learnt a
lot by reading his essays and his bullet points in twitter about startups and
building companies.

I'm not able to understand why he has to make this comment. He sits in
Facebook board and recently TRAI had declined Facebook's Free Basics which
violates Net Neutrality. Does this have anything to do with his comment?

India has been growing great in recent years and it's headed for enormous
growth in next few decades. India has the largest youth population in the
whole world and it can transform itself into a great super-power if it's run
by great politicians and put India back in track.

\- The British East India Company was the original Free Basics. We all know
how that ended.

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zinghaboi
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.

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sand87ch
Such an outrageous comment.kind of shows the mindset behind supporting such
walled gardens in india compared to western countries because they think that
we Indians are inferior and shud be content with what they give

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raddad
Facebook wants to be a modern day AOL? Prodigy? Compuserve? There was another,
think it began with a G.

I'll never forget how astounded people were when I showed them how to minimize
the AOL window and get on _the real_ internet.

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kanchankumar
besides poor choice of words, it's also about how ill-informed he is about
this entire debate. It's obvious, he has only read what Facebook has fed him
with. I am a huge fan of his work and views and hence wouldn't assign motive
to this, but yes, sure he did piss people off, including his fan base.

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alcima
Poorly phrased by pmarca, but seems certain he did not mean that India would
be better off becoming a colony again. More likely he meant that some things
associated with their successful anti-colonial efforts, such as "economic
nationalism" and "license raj" have not worked out well for them. I don't know
anything about Free Basics, so have no idea if it belongs in that category or
not.

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jace
FWIW, TRAI has no jurisdiction over Facebook and so obviously has not passed
any ruling on them. Free Basics has not been banned.

The only thing TRAI has done is banning telecom operators from offering
different websites at different prices.

pmarca had no justification to use colonial rhetoric here.

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hackaflocka
Indian here. pmarca is correct.

That is all.

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gd1
You mean to say this Abhimanyu Ghoshal doesn't actually speak for 1 billion
Indians? You must be _offended_ that he presumed to know your opinion, based
on your nationality, without asking you.

