Facebook cares about you, yes you, so much it won't give up on India Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken to Facebook – of course! – to vent about India's decision to ban its neo-colonialist virtual land grab Free Basics internet-on-ramp. His post is written in earnest-ese and makes three points: Facebook is not the only entity trying to help India who will be hurt by India's decision to …
No, they are doing this scheme to make money.
Facebook are a successful exploitive parasite encouraging people to be foolish and making money by exploiting them. The only difference with Twitter is it's not doing it well enough to make money. Google, even though Google Plus isn't doing well, is the most successful exploitive parasite due to their dominance on Search feeding dominance in Advertising.
None of these companies care about you, except as resource to be milked.
Agreed.
It's only competition when there is actually competition to be had. Like zero rating in an environment where non-zero rated content is affordable... thereby allowing choice.
Doing it where the, "customers," don't have a choice isn't ... er... a choice. They'll get the walled garden and they won't know about other services because they'll likely be too expensive to use.
The Indian government know their own people and their own market a damn sight better than I do. It's their decision to make, and not our right to crow on about it... and certainly not Zucks.
Whether the bed be made of nails or memory foam, it's the Indian governments to make it, and lie on it.
That's yet another debate.
How free are people, even in developed nations, to choose the manner in which they communicate?
Not very I'd argue, since Facebook is not some free choice that your family and friends made for themselves, but a inescapable network effect and economy of scale.
Facebook is a natural monopoly, and the competition regulators need to keep a fist firmly up Zuck's ass at all times.
Well, duh. Of course they are. The profit motive is not yet illegal however, and not sufficient reason in itself to ban something.
India's middle class elites have just kicked the poorest Indians offline, as The Register pointed out yesterday. The caste system seems in India to be alive and well.
> Facebook is not the only entity trying to help India who will be hurt by India's decision to can Free Basics;
Yes, there are other big businesses who are trying to get a hammerlock on a massive emerging market and block everyone else out before anyone realises that they've been screwed...
> Facebook will keep trying to help more people in India, and everywhere, get online because getting online brings prosperity;
Especially for Zuck!
> Facebook cares about you. Yes, even you. Which is why Facebook is going to ridiculous lengths to provide internet connections all over the planet and especially in its poor parts.
And no doubt they're Thinking About the Children too! (And how to monetise them...)
I'll bet this has put Modi's nose out of joint; he was milking the love in with Zuck for all the votes he could get, and freebies (with or without strings) suit the BJPs rather shallow 'bread and circuses' political style. The rather hollow image of "India shining" the BJP tried to punt under Vajpayee didn't wash with the electorate in the end and got them unceremoniously dumped. Modi's going to have to do better by Indias hundreds of millions of poor than free Facebook if he wants to avoid the same humiliating demise, not least as his record on free speech already looks threadbare.
Farcebook Free Basics is not about providing FREE Internet (either FREE as in freedom of speech or FREE as in FREE beer). It is about locking people into the Farcebook idea of what they should be able to access. Anything outside their narrow acceptable list of sites will not be available. You won't even know that the remainder of the internet exists.
Farcebook Free Basics is about indoctrinating people into the Farcebook mindset so that when they can progress to a fully open Internet they will be so brainwashed that they believe Farcebook = Internet.
"Saint Michael, the Arc-Angel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wiles and snares of the Devil [aka Mark Zuckerberg]. Restrain him, O God, we humbly beseech thee, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, cast into Hell Satan, and the other Evil Spirits who roam about the Earth, seeking the ruin of souls" Pope Leo XIII
Let's see what's happened over the past 20 years. Lots of people have been "getting online", and inflation-adjusted median incomes have... er... stagnated. I'm not saying there's (necessarily) a causal connection, but I am unconvinced that "getting online == prosperity" at macroeconomic levels.
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