This is so ironic people who are against providing restricted amount of basic necicities (watre, electricity) for free, are supporting a restricted internet!

Few points which are worth discussing here-

  1. Why people in unconnected part of the world need internet ? As per my understanding and as per internet.org objectives, it is needed so that they are not just connected but can be well-informed about health, education, job opprtunity etc. Now, which of this goal is being fulfilled by internet.org or free basics, I would say none of them. From education perspective they will not have access to google search (agree or not we owe our learning more to google than to our teachers) which is the biggest gateway to knowledge. From job perspective, as of now in India they have babjob.com on their platform and not any other job portal — not even naukari.com, now does this helps from job perspective. Similar argument can be given for other objectives which internet.org is trying to fulfill
  2. Now if Facebook wants to connect the world then why don’t they provide a limited amount of data for free and expose the unconnected world to the internet. Unlike your suggestions where we should stop using the internet till everyone gets access to it.
  3. As you have already mentioned internet consists of two part — ISPs and Publishers and as per my view net neutrality applies to both of them. Because without tying up with ISPs no platform can provide free access to it’s and it’s partner services. So, by tying up they are in a way going against the basics of net neutrality.
  4. About using free service, I think we are not using any of these services for free, we are paying a huge price for it by letting them use our private data. So, even if we are not paying for it directly but we are paying some price indirectly. And the way FB uses our data is the specific reason why we should be worried about FB is trying to achieve using internet.org
  5. Also, I agree with you we should let people pick what they think is right for them and elite people should not decide for them. But for them to pick what is right they should be aware of all the options available and elite and reach class should not restrict their access to all options.