Comment by prostoalex
10 years ago
Facebook is not a carrier.
If any carrier chooses to provide full Internet access for free, they may do so.
So far they haven't, though. Which is why company-sponsored basic service that's free to the users emerged in the first place.
Google has announced free Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations in India. I think it does something similar in other countries (and there is Google Fibre). It is just a start but more sensible than what facebook chose to do.
Now this is what I think. Facebook is interested in being a monopoly and this step will ensure its rivals don't get in (because facebook pays for it). This is what all the argument is about. Saying billion people will get free internet is just an eyewash. They don't give you full internet, just the part which serves their interest.
Carriers should not control/discrimintate internet access. This should apply to other companies as well.
Cost structures for providing free WiFi and providing wireless telecom service are completely different though - a telecom ought to procure proper licensing, acquire some spectrum and buy/rent tower space before they earn their first dollar.
End of the day it's all about barriers for entry - the barrier to provide free WiFi is relatively low, and one can do it at the cost of an uplink connection and a wireless router. If you find a way to lower the barrier for wireless telecom space, the market forces will take over.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791939
One carrier is already trying this.
Also, facebook isn't even financing the actual data (the carriers are), and the carriers' business plan (get people hooked onto the Internet so they migrate to a full plan) works on any form of "free limited internet" plan, where the plan is limited by speed or a data cap instead of by limiting what "Internet" means. Facebook is a third party which has wedged itself into this with extra deals; but the situation from the carriers' point of view shouldn't be much different if they set a free data cap or provide a free slow internet plan.
It's not true that no other carrier is offering free internet. It's a better model with no restrictions.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/aircel-to-...
If they truly had altruistic intentions, they damn well could be.
Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.
Really? It was capitalism, but not The Enlightenment, mathematics and science, or the development of egalitarian rule of law, or democracy?
Feudalism may have lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system in the history of the world at the time. It's a good thing we didn't decide to stop there. What would you have written at the time?
There are a lot of assumptions and learning from 200 years of capitalism baked into that remark. The rampant 'success' of capitalism was also a factor leading to communism. Like any good self regulating system it needs mechanisms in place to control it's own greed.
Also, altruism is perfectly at home with modern evolutionary theory because it assumes a more enlightened, rather than simple minded, understanding of altruism.
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I'm not sure what to say to this absurd nonsense, in the same way that I wasn't sure how to deal with the kids in my elementary school who really believed that Santa Clause was real. Just telling them they are wrong doesn't help.
Reminder that capitalism required driving people from their land and ability to provide for themselves so that there's a permanent cheap labor force willing to work for practically nothing to survive.
I'm not sure that any system doesn't need /any/ altruism. It may be the case that systems which do not require much altruism to function work better, because there is a higher chance of the requirement being met, but I think that a good system would also have mechanism by which altruism can provide further benefits.
If what is required for people to act in a way that benefits others is for the people to be motivated to act that way, it seems that people being motivated by the benefit that their actions have for others would be a good motivation for them to act that way, as far as it is an available motivation.
Which, seems compatible with some senses of the word "capitalism". People value their own well-being, and the well-being of others, by some amounts, and based on that, take actions and make agreements with others so as to serve these ends as they see fit.
Of course, in that sense any system could be seen as a sort of capitalism, leading capitalism to be almost like a tautology?
Which doesn't seem to match how people use it, so either I don't understand the intent behind how people use it, or, uh, it's almost kind of empty? Probably the former.
that usually comes to bite you later.
with only one tv channel/radio station/available free web site to billions of poor, bad politicians can focus much easier on praying them. this worked very well when their only entertainment was religion cults.
everything has a consequence that will indirectly affect your ivory tower.
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Sure but what's a solution that's a reasonable compromise until that happens?
its not a "reasonable compromise" from the point of view that Facebook is supposedly acting altruistically, this is a 100% self interested power play.
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