Re: Why is Mark Zuckerberg angry at critics in India?

Vickram,

In US Fb wants net neutrality cause its users may end up paying more and it
is too late to colonize US by Fb, unlike its attempt in India with "free
basic" - for once an eminent Fb board member and investor stated the ugly
truth about the real reason for "Fb philanthropy" which is now being
withdrawn for PR reasons.
On 11 Feb 2016 08:08, "Vickram Crishna" <v1clist-/[email protected]> wrote:

> Srini et al
>
> Pardon my leaping in at this late stage.
>
> Actually, I did not find all that much wrong in Mr Pandey's exposition, of
> the situation, but I am unable to fathom the conclusions. As far as the
> observations go, they have a little truth, doubtless, within the fuzzy
> terms used in the description.
>
> But exactly what is being said her? That monopolies (and let's be catholic
> and throw in duopolies and oligopolies) have a powerful balancing force in
> the existence of states? Therefore communists hate monopolies?
>
> ???
>
> Actually, communism, if that is an interesting aside, foresees the state
> withering away, only it wouldn't be replaced by private corporations. Both
> capitalism and communism agree on that. They disagree on the details of the
> other balancing mechanisms that would be necessary to prevent the lasting,
> all too extended (OK, not forever, maybe) hegemony of private corporations.
> These are structural issues, and if we are willing to accept that
> structural adjustments are the way out, then why not the structure of
> corporations themselves, instead of digressing into an argument over the
> nature of communism and capitalism (and that too, in a rather fuzzy way)?
> What will those be? Wrong place for such a discussion to be either
> meaningful or effective, it is clear.
>
> I don't know whether there will be a better way of doing things, going
> forward, since we seem to agree we can't go it alone as rugged individuals,
> not if those rugged individuals want to be able to eat anything other than
> shoots and leaves. The difference is technology, technology needs
> organisation, and organisation needs to operate within a larger social
> sphere. Call it regulation, call it a ministry of planning, call it a civil
> society watchdog. I think, very logically and rationally, that regulation
> and conflict are implicit, they go hand in hand, so the kind of thinking
> that imagines that social situations can be reduced to binary digits is the
> one that leads to the chief lobbyist for the telecom lobby in the USA
> becoming the chief of the FCC. Nope, one has to include multiple facets of
> regulation, just to ensure that no one outfit or establishment (or pillar
> of democracy) gains an overwhelming ascendancy of power. Call it the cost
> of doing business.
>
> Zuckerberg was one of the Big signatories who appealed to the FCC for a
> continued legal framework for enforcing net neutrality in the USA, just by
> the way, the the selfsame FCC heard and responded positively. I surmise, as
> I have no special access to his way of thinking, it is not because he
> believes that everyone in the USA already has trivial, or guaranteed,
> access to the net, or that the local telcos together present a saintly
> presence or history, or that he is ideologically opposed to US-owned telcos
> garnering a global share of the connectivity business.
>
> And as far as India is concerned, haven't we on this list seen a wide and
> yawning gap being presented on the capability and reality of connectivity
> in India, both in terms of the pipes that feed the country (and which are
> largely the foresight of those much maligned public sector telcos) and the
> fiber on the ground? The fact that the airwaves (now, and not in 1995, when
> the Supreme Court reminded the nation that the State does not own them, but
> is supposed to steward them in the public interest, and, in addition, "to
> prevent the invasion of their [sic, ie, the public's] rights") have
> become a major factor in the provision of meaningful connectivity is just
> one more inconvenient reality, shown up sharply due to the government's
> arguably cavalier handling of its stewardship (including the use of the
> airwaves to intrusively invade the personal space of every Indian, using
> technologies such as location tracking and cell phone monitoring).
>
> And incidentally, it is really terrific, that connectivity wise, we are so
> much better off than earlier. But it isn't good enough. It sticks out like
> a sore thumb, sort of like the difference between a show of reality and the
> real Donald Trump (whatever that is, but I fear, not much more than taking
> credit for other people's achievements).
>
> Vickram
> http://communicall.wordpress.com
> http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com
>
>
> On Tuesday, 5 January 2016, 11:04, Srini RamaKrishnan <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Pardon me, but that sounds like a defense of the indefensible. Slavery
> isn't permanent  either because all slaves eventually rebel.
> While monopolies aren't permanent, they can last a bloody long time, and
> cause a lot of harm while they last.
> Telco ISPs aren't five star restaurants, their service is indifferentiable
> from the non-telco ISPs that you impugn as hole-in-the-wall. There isn't a
> higher standard of luxury with one over the other or corresponding social
> prestige for the customer. The internet is the internet, and that is what
> net neutrality seeks to protect.
> Of course, once the internet is broken into basic internet, entertainment
> internet and professional internet or what have you, it becomes possible to
> expend marketing to extract more for the same service.
> There's a whole lot of marketing and advertising magic that becomes
> ineffective when measured in bits and megabits instead of songs and movies
> as some try to do.
> Though Facebook currently appears to be the villain of the piece, the
> actors to watch out for are the telcos, who intend to protect their
> monopolies.
> See fur example,
> http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/companies/telcos-to-oppose-ban-on-differential-data-tariffs/186754/
> I'd like to remind everyone of the breakup of Ma Bell, aka AT&T in the US
> into Baby Bells.
> The telco space like the railroads and banks are always the hotbeds of
> monopolies anywhere they exist in the world because they offer a difficult
> to switch platform on which numerous service offerings can be made. It is
> in their interest always to splinter the platform into tiered services.
> India should follow the FCCs example and implement service unbundling in
> India and breakup mobile arms of telcos from their backbone and from their
> landline services.
> Save the internet and other NN campaigners should target the domestic
> telcos, who are the ones acting against the interest of the consumer.
> Srini,
> You appear someone who likes to know why things are the way they are.
> Nothing exists in this world without a cause. Your observation is very true
> about some telcos offering faster speed at less.  I have eaten some of the
> most delicious dishes in a hole in the wall kind of eateries, not in one of
> those fancy expensive restaurant. Same with rest of businesses.  Business
> operating at different scale, markets, markets share, regulatory
> environment etc can offer different price product combination. It happens
> all the time.
> You can buy a cup of tea at Rs 5 at a road side stall or for Rs 500 at a
> restaurant across street.
>
> Coming  back to monopolies, I would like you to do similar exercise and
> think about them.
> I did not put that question to Ken as a rhetorical device. There is a
> meaning to it.   Reproducing it below again. I would suggest anyone reading
> it should think about it.
>
> Quote
> Monopolies are rarely permanent.
> And during the short period  when it is possible for monopolies to
> generate above market profits
> for its owners, enough suppliers are attracted to the market with better
> product
> and business model to make monopolies ineffective.
>
>
> Care to list Monopolies that have survived without government protection?
> Monopolies and inherently unstable and open to attack.
>
> The communist/socialist economist and ideologues have carefully created
> fear
> of monopolies to justify government takeover of private businesses.
>
> Unquote
>
> Sincerely,
> Ratnendra Pandey
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Jan 4, 2016, at 3:51 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > While I can't claim to have conducted a rigorous data backed study into
> the matter, when I reflect on the internet scene in India it occurs to be
> that historically mainstream non-telco ISPs like the urban cable internet
> operators have always offered better prices and faster speeds than telco
> ISPs. And why wouldn't they - the telco ISPs have no motivation to offer
> faster speeds which would eat into their bread and butter of leased lines
> and voice traffic.
> >
> > It doesn't help that Airtel, Tata and Reliance, all telcos own most of
> the backbone in India that is privately owned. Effectively they control how
> fast the internet can be in India, and in their ideal world it will be just
> fast enough so as to maximize their profits. For all their noises for two
> decades now about triple play, the services aren't there yet, though the
> tech and the rolled out dark fiber is most definitely there.
> >
> > Besides profit maximization, there is also some legacy telco mentality
> when it comes to pricing.
> >
> > Why haven't TRAI or MRTP or the numerous state and central trade
> commissions and IT ministries done something about this? Answer: regulators
> in India are asleep at the wheel like they are in much of the world.
> >
> > What about the free markets then?
> >
> > It should be in the interest of Flipkart, Amazon and other ecommerce
> retailers besides Google and FB to lobby against this telco monopoly rather
> than make common cause with the telcos and offer packages like Free Basics.
> Even if in the long term their customers would be able to access their
> services faster, they would undoubtedly suffer heavily in the short term by
> going against the powerful telcos. That is unacceptable, and so they don't.
> >
> > Neither free markets nor regulation are perfect answers, but since they
> both work some of the time, we need to rely on both, as well as law makers,
> technological innovation and the consumer activists to keep the agenda of
> progress going.
> >
> > To argue that we ought to lose regulators, activists, or any one of the
> levers that keeps telcos honest and straight is not seeing the full picture.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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