[aianus]

> But 50% of the rest of India doesn't pay for internet and it thinks there is no need to because that is ALL the internet has to offer.

The majority of the content on my Facebook feed is links to external websites. I'm skeptical of this argument that poor people will be forever satisfied with just chatting and browsing Facebook and will never upgrade to full internet.

[alephnil]

In several other Asian countries (e.g. the Philipines, Indonesia, Thailand), a much larger percentage say they are on Facebook than the portion that say they are on Internet [1]. Of cause they can't be on Facebook without being on Internet, but those users have no idea that Facebook require internet, and that it usually means that they also have access to other Internet services.

A lot of users in these countries answer yes to the question "Facebook is the internet", and claim they never follows links out of Facebook. Of cause these answers reveal widespread ignorance, and it may be that they don't know if they leave Facebook or not, but it does mean that Facebook is the gateway to Internet for them. Thus a lot of users will stay satisfied with internet.org, especially if that is what most people in their local communities use.

[1] http://qz.com/579502/the-winners-and-losers-of-2015s-10-most...

[peteretep]

Who cares what they think they're connected to? In Thailand, like everywhere else, most of the links Facebook shows are off-network.

AOL's walled garden didn't stop people exploring the big wide world, it was a gateway drug.

[eggie]

> AOL's walled garden didn't stop people exploring the big wide world, it was a gateway drug.

For many it may have been a gateway to facebook ;)

[schandur]

> The majority of the content on my Facebook feed is links to external websites.

Not sure if you are joking, but with features like "Instant Articles", Facebook has every reason to keep people on facebook.com rather than sending them to external websites.

When you are locked down in a walled garden that allows messaging (within the garden) and every other service is blocked, people will simply believe that walled garden is all there is.

[pmontra]

Plenty of dystopic scifi movies end with the breach of a wallet garden and the hope for a better world outside. It's fiction but it should be telling.

[parennoob]

> I'm skeptical of this argument that poor people will be forever satisfied with just chatting and browsing Facebook and will never upgrade to full internet.

It's not just Facebook that's a part of Free Basics, it is Facebook, Wikipedia, and a bunch of other services that are "approved" by Facebook. So the chance is greater that people will become used to these free services (not just Facebook) being perceived as the Internet.

[peteretep]

Nobody has provided the tiniest shred of evidence for this being true. Unless Indians are dramatically different from other Facebook users, and don't post many external links, everyone in the free service will be bombarded with what they're missing.

[pmontra]

I checked my feed right now. First 20 posts: 8 are content created on FB (text, pictures snapped for uploading, etc), 12 are shares of external content. Hopefully you are right but don't underestimate a fact: the have not (the ones in the walled garden) won't see any of those content if they don't have friends on the open internet. And even if so, FB might choose not to show them content that they can't see anyway.