It seems most people here are against this because of Facebook's (or other service providers') gain from it, but no one is arguing against Mark's actual point: "some access is better than none at all", which I think is more important.
Internet.org may not succeed at the end, because of the conflict of interests in many parties (corporate and political) involved in its running. But the idea of providing limited access for free is IMO very good and important, and arguing details before anything being done is at best unproductive.
All the people here already have internet access, and most without any limit or censorship. But can you try to think of this from POV of the users of internet.org? Not to think for the children in poor regions, but think AS those children.
Let me explain from my experience, where limit of access mostly comes from heavy censorship.
I was born in China at the end of the Culture Revolution. Fortunately, my family still had got TV when I was in elementary school, and we had internet when I was in high school. All the information, programs, news, cartoons, whatever contents from TV or internet were heavily censored. They were censored so heavily that I, as a kid, could not realize that they were censored at all. But I still enjoyed a lot of information, entertainment, knowledge from TV and internet as a kid. As an adult now, I hate and want to fight those censorship with all I have. But without TV or internet, I'd very unlikely to be able to code, or to write English, or anything I enjoy doing today.
To me, the limit of access that's forced by government doesn't differ much from the ones by corporates. But having some limited access to information is absolutely critical, when the ONLY other option is no access.
Mark said that governments and telcos decide which services go on internet.org
Do you really want the government (or even your telco) deciding which news source that the poor (who are easily influenced) read?
Leaving aside the preservation of competition, government deciding what news services to provide to the poor has huge political ramifications, especially when every media outlet has a bias towards one end of the political spectrum or other.
In this case, no access is far better than some access. Just because it didn't play out as bad as it could have in China, doesn't mean that the same will happen in India. See North Korea for example.
Thanks for making plain what others are implicitly saying. The arguments against zero-rating in general always seem to be based on the argument that the poor are stupid and as their superior, we know better. Paternalism at its finest.
In the case of Internet.org, I agree that the name is misleading bordering on fraud, and shouldn't be allowed. But besides that, how about letting people choose if they prefer to pay for full Internet access?
I don't believe that "some is better than none" if that "some" sets a dangerous precedent for telcos to abuse their position in the future.
For example, patents are designed to reward investment in innovation in the marketplace by granting a temporary monopoly on that innovation. This leads to billions of dollars in R&D into new drugs and therapies which when successfully brought to market will lead to less suffering and death in the world. Of course, there are those who will not be able to afford the therapy and will die and suffer more. Yet, we as a society believe that inherently, the system leads to a better macro outcome for everyone because we are rewarding risk and innovation.
It's hard to design systems that are going to reward everyone. Similarly, the gain of those who will get access to free internet will benefit that specific group but may cause issues in other parts of the system.
A risk: this will foster a generation of internet users whose definition of the internet is something along the lines of cable television. Pay per site acceptance will be fed with Mark's mothers milk.
Internet.org may not succeed at the end, because of the conflict of interests in many parties (corporate and political) involved in its running. But the idea of providing limited access for free is IMO very good and important, and arguing details before anything being done is at best unproductive.
All the people here already have internet access, and most without any limit or censorship. But can you try to think of this from POV of the users of internet.org? Not to think for the children in poor regions, but think AS those children.
Let me explain from my experience, where limit of access mostly comes from heavy censorship.
I was born in China at the end of the Culture Revolution. Fortunately, my family still had got TV when I was in elementary school, and we had internet when I was in high school. All the information, programs, news, cartoons, whatever contents from TV or internet were heavily censored. They were censored so heavily that I, as a kid, could not realize that they were censored at all. But I still enjoyed a lot of information, entertainment, knowledge from TV and internet as a kid. As an adult now, I hate and want to fight those censorship with all I have. But without TV or internet, I'd very unlikely to be able to code, or to write English, or anything I enjoy doing today.
To me, the limit of access that's forced by government doesn't differ much from the ones by corporates. But having some limited access to information is absolutely critical, when the ONLY other option is no access.