Free Basics: Do we really need it?
What is Free Basics? (according to Facebook)
Free Basics is a platform by Facebook which makes the internet accessible to more people by providing them a range of free basic services available on the internet.
“To date, we’ve been(Facebook) is able to offer these services to a billion people across Asia, Africa and Latin America. By introducing people to the benefits of the internet through these services, we hope to bring more people online and help improve their lives.”
Source: Free Basics
Do Indians really need Free Basics?
Facebook gets access to all the data and usage patterns of all the sites partnered on FreeBasics. No website which wants to compete with Facebook will partner with them because it will have to give them user data. Facebook gives data to the NSA and this is a security issue for India. (source)
Against the concept of Net Neutrality
User
What that figures out is when a user switches to Free Basics, he’ll be able to use only particular companies instead of any service available over the internet. That comes out to that the user doesn’t have freedom to avail some other service which isn’t available on Free Basics.
Service Providers
This also affects in decreasing the competition of the Service Providers partnered with Free Basics.
Verdict
In a nation where 190 million go hungry daily (source), where basic sanitation facilities are available to only 50% of it’s citizens(source) are being offered Internet, a luxury to these people.
Maybe Mark’s motive is good, but for India this is probably not a good idea as of now.
We Would like to hear your views and suggestions about Free Basics!
