
Facebook's Gateway Drug - applecore
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/opinion/sunday/evgeny-morozov-facebooks-gateway-drug.html
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ef4
> In a short essay outlining the vision behind Internet.org, Mr. Zuckerberg
> says one of its goals is to offer credit and identity infrastructure “that
> is still nascent in many developing countries.” Such services might be of
> some help in developing countries. But is Facebook the best entity to
> provide them?

"Best" among what alternatives? If nobody else is providing these services,
then Facebook may necessarily be the best by default. Of course we can imagine
better ways. But those ways are _imaginary_ until somebody actually shows they
can do it.

And I have a hard time getting upset that Facebook might beat out Experian and
friends to become the credit bureau of choice in some developing countries.
Why should I have a dog in that fight?

~~~
mcgwiz
Because the people that live in those developing countries are fellow human
beings, and generally have no economic/political power relative to Facebook
and other MNCs.

~~~
cynicalkane
This excuse has very often had the result of denying basic jobs and services
to people in developing countries.

Like the GP said, "alternate ways" are _imaginary_ until someone else does it.
The best way to provide an alternate solution is to provide an alternate
solution. The worst way to provide an alternate solution is to complain about
it with that typical rich Westerner indignation that some people face harder
choices than themselves, with the end result sometimes being that no solutions
at all are provided.

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k-mcgrady
Although it is concerning that Facebook could essential become 'the internet'
for people in developing countries you can't sit in your nice, comfortable
office and tell people that should be their main concern. When you don't have
internet access and when you can't access essential services with as much
efficiency as we can, privacy and monopolies aren't the main concern. Easy
access to health information, banks, money, and business opportunities are the
main concern. Long term thinking is hard to grasp when you are forced to focus
on the short term. Long term thinking is a luxury a lot of people in
developing countries can't afford.

~~~
mcgwiz
Fair point about citizens in developing countries being forced to focus on the
short-term. But does that mean it's right for Facebook to take advantage of
them in a way that, in the long-term, is questionable at best?

This is about more than just providing heating oil or railroads... this is
about their entire information infrastructure, and they're in no position to
negotiate.

~~~
judk
Offer an alternative, or get out of the way.

~~~
fred_durst
The alternative is to "get out of the way." Instead of allowing these
countries to get to internet access in their own way, and at their own pace,
internet.org will hamstring the efforts by providing this free crippled
version that will permanently warp these users view of what the internet is
and push out smaller local competition that provides real internet.

The very fact that it's called internet.org is obvious proof of the dishonesty
at play.

Sometimes the right answer is to do nothing if you don't have anything good to
contribute.

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caster_cp
From the Internet.org website itself, comes a very timely affirmation: "The
future of the world economy is a knowledge economy - the Internet, its
backbone". Should this backbone be on the hands of, or at least controlled by,
one single company (or cartel, or association)? This move is a very good
strategic move to access the so called "other 3 billion", and the mixture of
tech companies and public services in developing countries has been proven
effective (see M-Pesa, an initiative that revolutionized the financial
services ecosystem in Kenya). But there are very deep philosophical
implications when private companies start taking the role of government on the
internet. Nowadays, many public servants do not understand the implications of
this "knowledge economy" referenced on the internet.org website. Specially
when it relates to the forces that lead to huge market concentrations and even
de facto monopolies in these industries (see Facebook, Google, Amazon,
Microsoft, ...). The irony of this specific initiative is that a company that
fights for net neutrality with the EFF against the telcos tries to do the same
thing, but at a different layer, in developing countries. In reality, this
raises a very important question for the future of the internet: what is the
right amount of private interference on services that were previously
considered public ones (identification being the most prominent of these
nowadays)? Are we heading to a new Bell style monopoly, but at a global scale,
nowadays? And what will be the outcome of the very important fight of internet
versus infrastructure companies that is going on? Regarding these doubts, I
really and firmly believe that the most interesting phenomenons will not
happen in the US, but on the most unsuspecting countries out there (again, see
M-Pesa). We just have to wait and see

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mattangriffel
"Imagine your water meter giving you free quick showers but charging you for a
bath."

Am I the only one that doesn't think this is ridiculous? We already pay for
the water we use to take a bath or a shower. So basically this amounts to free
showers. Isn't that something to be happy about?

~~~
exit
no, it's a step away from completely commodifying water; and if someone
offered that "package" i wouldn't for a moment believe they aren't making more
money off of me in the long run than had they charged just a flat fee.

and i feel the same about internet access.

~~~
IBM
No one will actually care if they're making more money overall if the end user
is saving because they spend less on water/data because their usage is lower.
The sooner ISPs start charging based on usage the better. Low usage customers
have been subsidizing heavy users for a long time.

The alternative is having heavy bandwidth services subsidize their customers'
data use which would also work.

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slurry
What's frustrating is how un-data-driven these efforts are. Surely we have
some empirical research by now on the most cost-effective ways to improve
quality of life through aid projects. And my guess is the top ten are all
sanitation-related.

But they do this. What a [presumably tax-subsidized] waste.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Because other people are taking care of sanitation related problems. Why can't
we tackle more than one issue? Throwing money at one problem, solving it, and
moving on to another one isn't necessarily the most efficient way to solve
those problems.

~~~
pjscott
Yes, of course you want to direct your efforts at whatever will bring the
largest _marginal_ benefit -- and you're right that that can change if other
people are already working on the absolute best things. However, that doesn't
mean that all the other options are equally good! Would Facebook's money be
better spent on internet access, or by being one among many working on
sanitation? It's not a forgone conclusion, and it would be nice to see people
be more data-driven about how they spend their charity money.

In practice, the internet thing is probably Facebook's only option, since it's
the only one they can convince their investors to back. This isn't really
charity; they intend to make a viable business. I really like that aspect of
the plan. Charity comes and goes, but businesses tend to stick around when
they're making money.

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dan_bk
> Mr. Zuckerberg retorted that he preferred to think about it as an “on-ramp
> to the Internet”

And the gov't of course welcomes the initiative as it lifts the rest of the
world onto the surveillance platform.

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happycube
Sounds like he's trying to remake AOL/Compuserve/et al...

~~~
joaorj
hopefully he'll succeed

~~~
spacefight
Why?

~~~
nine_k
Imagine your life with crippled, limited, silly AOL connectivity vs your life
without connectivity at all.

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IBM
Don't be afraid startup/VC bros. Just raise a little more money and start
subsidizing your users' data use as well.

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furyofantares
What's with the dot.org link?

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higherpurpose
And like most drugs, it's usually bad for you. Say NO to Facebook!

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sbierwagen
Permanently deleted my Facebook account a couple weeks back. I hadn't
seriously used Facebook since high school, but had held back from deleting the
account, because I didn't want to lose the data.

Of course, the older you get, the less of a good idea it seems to preserve all
the dumb shit you said in high school for perpetuity.

