Ya, there's nothing wrong with them providing this service. They just shouldn't be heralded as providing some great charity, I think that's all people are saying.
If they were providing full internet, that would be an incredibly charitable, generous, and positive thing. As it stands, it's just another business venture - which is fine, but not great.
Facebook is a business, yes. Does that mean they do not positively impact the world? Absolutely not. IIRC they are providing FB and Wikipedia (among other resources), those two resources alone will allow people the access to the entirety of human knowledge, and the ability to connect to anyone in the world. Via there phone. That is _huge_. Yes, it isn't perfect, and yes FB is investing for advertising in ~5-10+ years to come. But, that doesn't mean that hundreds of millions of people's lives will be dramatically better as a result. I apologise of this was slightly incoherent, I'm on mobile and do not have time to re-read.
> ... will allow people to access the entirety of human knowledge ...
This is so far removed from the truth. What about blogs? Academic papers? Journalistic articles? Mailing list threads? Even paper books!
The name "Internet.org" is grossly misleading. "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." Willingly giving a service effective control of the present yields dastardly results.
My claim was not correct. However, a lot of blogs, journals, books etc. are used as references for Wikipedia.
Regardless, this is a huge step up. We must not let perfection get in the way of progress.
FB will not have any control, people can choose to use it, or not. They are also free to pay for an ISP when an affordable and reliable one arrives. Which at this point is not possible.
If they were providing full internet, that would be an incredibly charitable, generous, and positive thing. As it stands, it's just another business venture - which is fine, but not great.