
Opposition to Facebook's new internet.org - williswee
https://www.techinasia.com/talk/facebooks-internetorg-evil/
======
nugget
This is an important topic that should be top of mind for all of us and
discussed on a regular basis. Facebook is trying hard to become like AOL in
the mid 90s. Total control from soup to nuts. Zuckerberg and his team are very
clever and calculated in their approach (as any of us might be in their
position, similarly incentivized and with no malicious intentions). But we
will all be worse off if they are successful. The open web is one of the few
things in life I've found worth really fighting for.

~~~
zaidf
No one doubts that the open web is a good thing. But no where in your entire
post do you address the apparent upside of Internet.org: people who wouldn't
be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it.
I think at that point the argument against Internet.org isn't as black and
white. You can make an argument that in the _long run_ it might be a bad thing
but you have to acknowledge that at least in the near term it is providing
some benefit.

~~~
mehrdada
Right, but if you look at the adoption curves of technology, empirically, the
long run comes quite quickly, so it is questionable that accelerating
technology adoption is worth the long term monopoly leverage it brings.

EDIT: this is especially true considering Internet.org, despite its pitch,
does not actually bring much to the connectivity infrastructure. It works in
places where mobile connectivity infrastructure _already exists_ , just
(presumably) not affordable enough. It is purely an economic arbitrage game,
not infrastructure development.

EDIT2: I also speculate that competition between big players (e.g. Google vs
Facebook) will not help resolve the problem either. Since all incumbents
benefit from stuff like this, and almost all newcomers lose, big guys have few
incentives to break down such paradigms after they are built up (very much
like gerrymandering that Democrats and Republicans both like as it benefits
them all).

~~~
xseotheo
You seem to be misinformed regarding infrastructure. Please research
facebook's Aquila before posting.

~~~
forgottenpass
I googled it up, and from the dates on news reports, it looks like it's been
stuck in "ready for testing" limbo for months and there are zero meaningful
specs or details on the drone itself published.

I also found Tim Berners-Lee trashing the buisness model, and philanthropist
Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to solve in the
developing world before connectivity.

I didn't think I could be more negative on Facebook's shitty internet.org, but
now I am. Thanks for encouraging me to do the research!

~~~
newsignup
> philanthropist Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to
> solve in the developing world before connectivity.

Perhaps 'connectivity' is what Mark Zuckerberg is good at solving. We all
should be doing things we are good at if its not harming anyone. At this
moment people just have theories that internet.org might not be a good thing.
People can be wrong, only time will tell.

------
xseotheo
This article is written from the point of view of a tech savvy but it's
completely missing empathy. IMHO It completely misses the point. The idea of
internet.org as I understand it is not to allow everyone, everywhere to see
cat videos. But rather to show people the value of connectivity.

Most people that are not connected do not see a value on it. They think it
won't help them in any way in their lives, that's a rich kid thing. The idea
of the project I believe is to provide a free taste of limited functionality,
to open that door to new opportunities. Then decide whether the value is worth
it or not, and purchase an internet plan as his/her requirements dictate. It's
a sort of "internet" literacy that wants to be spread. Feel free to actually
check what the internet.org package offers, and imagine how it can help
someone appreciate the value of being connected.

Right now due to lack of knowledge people without any access to internet have
no idea how their crippling their own future, and their children's future. I
believe the idea of internet.org is to provide some sort of basic free
services that may help people decide whether full internet connectivity is for
them or not, and try to change the "that's a thing only for
rich/tech/lazy/young people" mentality that may prevail in rural areas for
example.

In full disclosure I worked for fb for 1.5 years and haven't worked for them
for half a year. These are my personal opinions .

~~~
chippy
You describe your belief of the idea of internet.org really well - it's the
same one as most people have. The article spends half of itself describing how
this idea is a myth. The article is saying that this Good Idea is, if you look
at it, devoid of any humanitarian, charitable and not for profit motives.

It's not that the article is missing empathy, it's that the article describes
how Internet.org is devoid of empathy.

~~~
Kalium
Maybe I'm just a sociopathic misanthrope, but I _don 't care_ if the motives
are humanitarian, charitable, full of empathy, and otherwise warm-fuzzy-non-
profit-y.

So this criticism seems utterly irrelevant.

------
halfcentaur
I'm pretty sure most of these counter points are Facebook team accounts.

Reasonable short term counterpoints to opposing Internet.org exist —more
access and faster. Facebook is leveraging those counter points into a market
strategy that undermines one of the central value propositions of the current
open internet.

It's defensible; it's not all bad. But its not ideal; it is distinctively bad
in a serious way.

Ideally Facebook would promote access to the open web, rather than undermine
it by promoting access to the Facebook version.

~~~
zaidf
_It 's defensible; it's not all bad._

You're one of the few exceptions to admit that it isn't all bad. Most
arguments against internet.org refuse to acknowledge the pros of it and
thereby in my view are not objective or honest.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
OTOH, I have found that all of them agree that universal access is important.
Haven't seen any one of them saying "the poor people should not get the free
data!"

------
ChrisNorstrom
Once you understand what this is, you realize how disgusting it is. This isn't
a charity to "help connect people" nor a fair business exchange. This is It's
a land grab on a developing market. A way to break into India early on and
establish a monopoly of internet companies (before Indians are able to build
theirs). Meaning less competition and nearly no way for India to profitably
have its own. Africa's largest social network Mxit already shut down when it
couldn't compete with Facebook and Twitter. What chance are home grown indian
social networks going to have with Internet.org land grab scheme?

In the still-early days of internet at least 3 companies had Free Dial-Up
Internet service suplimented with ads. They gave you access to ALL of the
internet and simply put an ad banner on the bottom of the screen at all times
you were connected. We had Net-Zero (FREE dialup internet with Ads), K-mart
Blue-Light (FREE dialup with ads), and Juno (FREE dial up with ads). All three
of them went off of the FREE ad based model eventually because it was
unsustainable (downloads and Napster required larger and larger amounts of
bandwidth). This wouldn't work today due to ad blockers and torrents.
Internet.org doesn't even give you access to the whole internet. So the only
way for this to pay off is for Facebook and Co to become a monopoly in India.

You might not care because it's an American company expanding its influence
abroad, but how would you feel if China did the same to us in the USA? And we
had no chance of ever developing Facebook?

------
supersan
Yes, Facebook has had an amazing growth in India in the last year (more than
any other country).

Facebook connects people and there are a billion people in India so it only
makes sense to get them online or better yet get them online while keeping
them in a walled garden for as long as possible so they can reap the maximum
rewards out of it.

Facebook portrays this as a humanitarian effort to bring poor people online
(see internet.org ads on YouTube which portrays this as giving people free
electricity) but it's only for their own benefit in the long run.

It's sad to see that Facebook is trying to kill the same thing which made it
what it is. Zuckerberg should wonder what it would be if 20% of India was
still using MySpace because they offered it for free in 2009 and didn't give
them any option to sign up for Facebook.

~~~
peteretep

        > Facebook portrays this as a humanitarian effort ...
        > but it's only for their own benefit in the long run.
    

Sounds like every government aid agency ever. Perhaps you should also ask
India to start refusing handouts from USAID, DFID, AusAID and so on...?

~~~
fabulist
If the aid they're receiving will ultimately be more harmful than helpful?
Yes. It is one thing to be self-interested, and another to be duplicitous.

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aaroninsf
Not-really-rhetorical question: how much less contentious would internet.org
be, if it were [branded] say... facebook.net?

IMO quite a bit. The substantive criticisms would be unchanged; but two
accelerants would be removed from the fire: the insinuation that the service
'is' the internet or some substantive subset of it; and that it is a
charitable undertaking first and foremost.

~~~
ceras
IIRC the product is not longer called internet.org anyway; it's now called
"free basics."

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's still a "project of Internet.org", alongside Facebook's Internet-
providing drone things.

------
gamesbrainiac
We've had this discussion before. This is merely rebranding and we all know
what internet.org is really about. And can we please stop being shocked by any
of it? Facebook is a corporation, it is not a charity, it needs to make money
since it promised its investors bucketloads of gold.

That being said, I feel that these discussions do little other than blame
Facebook. What we need is a good alternative that _does_ provide a full
internet connection albeit at low speeds to people in developing regions of
the world and the only way that I see we can possibly achieve this is to have
good legislation. I remember having just a dial up modem, and that was enough
for me to move up the social ladder; information can bring about social
mobility.

Right now, the _value_ of the internet is evident to most people in
government, all that we need to do is catalyze the process of making internet
a fundamental right in most developing countries, or at least making internet
_available_ and _affordable_ to everyone even if that means giving tax cuts to
people.

~~~
chippy
> We've had this discussion before.

> Can we please stop being shocked by any of it

No. Please do not shut down discussion, anytime. This kills the open internet.

------
thetruthseeker1
The article gives one point of view. The argument seem to imply that, this
free internet is worse than no internet at all. I am not sure I buy into that
yet. What I do think will be great is if the Govt of India and internet.org
can quickly iterate over this plan, see what is working and what is not
working and come up with regulations.

Mr. Mahesh made a comment about something that Comcast wanted to do was
outlawed - which is essentially regulations. I think if India can quickly
iterate and regulate with this new internet.org, that might be the solution to
the problem.

------
jld89
A partial article but nontheless the point has been made. It seems to me like
facebook is being more and more agressive as people are starting to lose
interest in the network.

And specially as there are more and more competitors that have much more to
offer, such as Tsu. I am glad that their monopoly generating idea of
internet.org is taking so much flak. I hope it continues, projects like these
deserve to die.

------
evilFacebook
it's widely accepted that _big boys_ don't play _fair_ but Facebook has set a
new standard of __LOW __

the _only_ way (& ambitious) I see is that for all the engineers at Facebook
to say __NO __for this evil project

anyone with any sense of decency couldn't possibly agree to be involved in
this evil project

------
kenrick95
Question: Besides Facebook, what are the apps/sites that are allowed by
internet.org's "Free Basics"? I can't find the list at internet.org.

------
EugeneOZ
Access to some information is better than no access to information.

Some way to communicate is better than no way to communicate.

~~~
fabulist
Why are you under the impression that people without Internet can't or don't
communicate with each other?

This is not access to communication or information, it's access to frivolous
distraction. Facebook has less bandwidth and more strings than traditional
verbal and written communication.

~~~
EugeneOZ
Because when I was young we were having phones, even mobile phones, but first
few years - without internet. My mobile site was one of the first mobile sites
in Russia. And I know for sure: communication by phones/mail is as different
from internet communication, as planet is different with atom. Coordinated
networks are MUCH different than list of contacts in phone.

------
dayon
It's the #1 reason I am boycotting all Facebook products. Zuckerberg is a very
bad man.

~~~
scrollaway
Ignoring hanlon's razor (and its variations) and immediately assuming malice
everywhere will prevent you from understanding the problem. You can't fix a
problem you do not understand. So please don't just go around throwing "x is a
very bad man" unless you have tangible proof, it serves no purpose.

~~~
dayon
Which razor is the one where you automatically presume I think the person is
intentionally malicious? The black guy in Terminator 2 wasn't being malicious,
but he was a very bad man in regards to what he was bringing to the human
race.

Also, it's impossible to provide tangible proof for any opinion. My opinion is
that Zuckerberg is a very bad person, and that is not a personal attack. A
personal attack is never an opinion. Rather, personal attacks are when people
have the intent of attacking to insult, to hurt, to throw wrenches into
arguments, and so on.

Hacker News might disagree and appeal to their arbitrary rules about what's
right and wrong, but to call my comment that "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" an
assumption of malice, an unproven claim, or a personal attack is more of all
three against myself than anything.

~~~
scrollaway
I accept your retort, and you're quite right my comment ironically ignored
hanlon's razor itself. I'll pay more attention to it in the future.

