Comment by iofj

Point 1: FB can't U-turn. Only the local telcos can do that. Judging by history they will in fact do that.

Point 2: FB is not a gatekeeper in free basics. FB simply provides a convenient door for the local telcos to open.

Point 3: The telcos, better known as the Indian government's corrupt cronies (meaning the Indian government gave ownership away to specific individuals), were, are, and will be the gatekeepers.

Making it slightly more difficult for some multinationals (other social networks, MS, linkedin, ...) to make profits in the future does not justify taking this away. If you feel this is unfair, then either convince the Indian government to provide your brand of free internet. I'm sure the amount of money that requires is a factor 10 less of what you'd think it is, which of course still makes it half a billion dollars or so.

In case you've missed it somehow. The internet is centralizing. That's the whole point of the cloud. That is what's being defended here. You're just defending one company centralizing against another. Amazon (including ec2), Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Oracle, ... all are centralized computing platforms that give you zero say in how your software runs, how your data is kept, and you can bet your ass all of these will lock you out. That is the thing they all agree on.

You seem to think this hasn't happened yet, but think about it. This has happened, it's too late.