First of all, I would like to state outright that I don’t see much wrong with “Free Basics”. Here is why.
What is Free Basics?
To put it in simple terms, Free Basics is a service that Facebook will provide to the poor people of India who cannot afford an internet data pack. This service will give selective access to websites that choose to be a part of Free Basics. Websites that don’t want to be a part of it won’t be accessible. The service is provided exclusively on the Reliance network.
Everybody around seems to be vehemently against this scheme, but do note that not a single person among this group of opponents is even going to be a beneficiary of Free Basics. What do the real beneficiaries even feel about this? We don’t know, and if I may hazard a guess, they might actually welcome it. Prominent personality Mr. Mahesh Murthy seems to have taken the internet by storm with his vociferous comments against Free Basics, which has been responded to by Facebook as well. I will focus this post on some of the points raised by Mr. Murthy.
1: Most of the commonly used websites will not be accessible on free basics. This includes sites like Google, Youtube, Amazon, Flipkart, HDFC, ICICI, IRCTC, Rediff, BSE, NSE and so on.
So what is wrong in this? Nobody stopped any of these websites from joining free basics. But they probably won’t. As Mr. Murthy pointed out, they won’t because they do not want their data to go via Facebook’s servers, which is perfectly fine. Whoever is willing to share their customer data with Facebook can offer themselves on Free Basics for the end-user. At-least, the end user gets something doesn’t he? Isn’t this better than remaining in the dark and being unaware of something called an Internet?
2: There is no need to ‘sell our people’ to Facebook. Data is cheap enough in India and eventually everybody will be on the full and open internet, given time. Or our government could offer a neutral and free internet service to its citizens.
Agreed, but is the government doing anything like this at the moment? Are there any near-term plans to provide free internet to the poor? We have many subsidies on food, agriculture, LPG etc, but not yet on internet. Till such a time comes, what is wrong in providing even limited access to the internet? Something is better than nothing. I think it is simply atrocious to say: It is better for the poor to be denied complete access to internet than be given partial access.
3: All of the traffic on free basics go via Facebook’s servers. This means Facebook could potentially get access to all of the customer data that passes through.
This perhaps has been one of the key ‘concerns’ of Free Basics opponents. I have a question to these people: You access google services – be it Gmail, Maps, Youtube etc. on a daily basis, perhaps multiple times a day. You also access Facebook for that matter every day, not just that you upload your personal pictures, you check-in to various location, you browse and search for various things, you shop for products online. Are you so ignorant that you think all of this data is being kept ‘safe’ and ‘private’? If so, then I have news for you my friend. In the digital age, there is no such thing as ‘privacy of data’. The minute you shop for something on Amazon, you have given a tacit approval to everyone in the value chain, right from your ISP, to your ecommerce site, to Google and so on to access every single digital data of yours. The only difference comes in whether Google has your data or Facebook or someone else, in today’s world it is currently Google which is the data giant. On the one hand you are more than happy and willing to share all of your data with Google, but on the other hand you don’t want the poor people to share their data with Facebook. Huh!
4: Facebook has spent significant money on advertising and lobbying for Free Basics. This money could have been spent on sponsoring, say the first 100MB a month at 2G speeds for the poor……
Really? Why should they sponsor data for free? Facebook was not built for charity. The government is there for that and there are NGOs. Facebook is a private for-profit enterprise that is answerable to its shareholders.
Though there are no ads currently, Facebook will start promoting ads on Free Basics to make money in future….
So? Why should they not do that? We all have hundreds of apps installed on our smartphones, most of them presumably free. All of these free versions come with ads, else how will they make money? It is the same logic that applies here. Facebook is providing something for free, they certainly can recover the money through harmless advertisements.
5: The real reason behind all this is for Facebook to get more customers who use Facebook but not Google, in order to make more revenues and justify their stock price to investors.
Perfectly justified for a for-profit enterprise as long as it is legitimate.
Data is the ‘oil’ of the 21st century. Facebook and Google’s revenue model is based on monetising our personal data and selling it to advertisers. The competition between internet companies today is to get more and more customer data and Free Basics is one of the ways by which Facebook is trying to score over Google.
Free Basics is not the first model to dabble with providing ‘connectivity to the poor’. Firefox, Aircel, Gigato are some of the others. All are ad-based and Gigato apparently charges the application developers to put up their data for consumers, which in my view violates net-neutrality even more. But nobody raised a word against Gigato, of course because it is an insignificant player to make a dent on the way we consume data, unlike Facebook.
6: Lastly, nobody is forcing anyone to join Free Basics. Everyone has the option of exercising their choice in an intelligent manner. In this context, the more important task at hand should be to educate the country’s poor – on the merits/de-merits of Internet in general and how it can make an impact their lives. I’m sure once they are adequately informed, these users themselves will move away from “Free Basics” to a fully paid internet platform, just like you or me.
Moreover, providing free full access to internet to the poor is the job of the government, not Facebook.
Instead of debating on Free Basics, I think there are much larger issues that need to be addressed regarding privacy of data. The monopoly of consumer data by American companies essentially. Be it Google, Facebook, or Amazon, all of the world’s data is on their servers located in the US which is free to use (misuse) them in any manner they chose to do. That is for a different post altogether.
Juggling my thoughts... 