Free Basics: My Views
Vineet Nayar
Founder, Sampark Foundation & Former CEO of HCL Technologies | Author of 'Employees First, Customers Second'
The full page advertisements on Free Basic have forced me to voice my absolute opposition to the idea.
The "poor need it" logic is twisted by folks who are drinking their own products! Some are attempting to change eating habits under the garb of malnutrition and some are trying to regulate a free world under the garb of gratis information. If you give a village free Cola for 3 years and then say you need to pay for it - who loses in the long run?
If you feel for the poor give them "free" in a form that does not addict them to something at first only to charge them for it later. That is why I am against everything that comes as free for a short term. I liked the Rs. 1 Rice Program because it changes nothing other than the fact that it puts food on the table where jobs are few. I like the government’s free education along with mid-day meal program because it gives you free basics for-ever and to everyone.
So go ahead and give free internet and let them use it the way they want. Give them because you care and not because you want to change habits. Yes unfortunately a large part of the Asian population is resource starved. If you want to help -- do it openly and transparently. Poor have not yet put a sign "exploit for free".
Practice Head VP - Program Management - Business Acquisitions and Mergers
8 年Also Vineet I noticed that your " Innovative EFCS " ideology was actually not practiced to the hilt at HCL resulting in HCL being sued for discrimination , favoritism , and inequality right under your nose. You could not tackle the menace of various lobbies operating with brazen audacity and the management despite being privy to these found solace in not to act. Let Facebook do something constrictive and innovative for the society .
Well written Vineet! Additional logic to supplement: The free-basic guys are assuming that the 'poor' can afford a smart phone or a laptop but can not afford Internet access. That itself is strange- Internet costs 1/10 that of smart phones and the poor are mostly concerned with one time large payments, which are high in buying these devices, which are northwards of Rs 7K. If the Free basic guys really are keen on "helping the poor get access to internet", they need to fund these devices first.....we dont want a situation where petrol is made free for a population which can not afford cars and bikes....that is not in the agenda.....it is obvious that there is some other agenda driving this movement of free basic
Technical Director | Oracle Database & Cloud Infrastructure Specialist | Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Administrator
8 年Absolutely Rr veneet, this is for creating addiction for big population
Associate General Manager at HCL Technologies
8 年I agree with Vineet’s view point. Certainly, he would have many pros and cons in his own analysis and reacted on full page free basics by facebook advertisement. Every new idea is criticized and welcomed both. The concept of giving free internet accessibility for a certain period is a good idea, but it has lots of complexity in terms of business interest, personal interest, national and international interest in Indian perspective. We should not bang on net neutrality the way it is being advertised as free basics by facebook. Net Neutrality must be actively discussed among us, those who usages, addicted, doing business and are well aware of the capability of internet - every information is in reach of everyone. Certainly government must come-up in the interest of Indian people over net neutrality with certain regulations for open usage of internet without any disparity. In a way internet should be accessible to everyone with fixed subscription or with bare minimal charges giving equal bandwidth to all lawful URLs in long run.