How is the world with no Facebook plane in any way better than the world with a Facebook plane that provides Facebook access? If you don't want Facebook access, or you already have it, the two worlds are indistinguishable.
Because internet.org's proxy server gives Facebook monopsonic control over the internet.
Even ignoring the massive man-in-the-middle attack problems from running old phones on a proxy, Facebook is positioning themselves to control exclusive access to large number of users for websites.
You could argue that Google already does this - but Google has competitors that users could switch to in a heartbeat. Internet.org users don't have options, and websites need to pander to Facebook to be in that walled garden. It also makes it easier for third world countries to censor the internet.
In the end, this is damaging to the open internet ecosystem. Facebook could have just implemented a rate-limited or data capped system like other ISPs, but they opted to create a more restrictive system that gives them more power.
> If Comcast didn't exist, internet access wouldn't exist for many people.
Sorry that is extremely far from the truth. Any of the other major ISPs' would leap at the chance to guzzle up these customers if there was no other competition.
You're splitting hairs. Most of Comcast's last mile infrastructure was government subsidized, exactly because no-one was "jumping on it".
So you're saying that it's okay to ignore net neutrality (charge Netflix) when the government isn't there to help subsidize last-mile infrastructure? When you could just as easily provide a capped alternative?
That's the point and splitting hairs doesn't change it.
Depends on precisely where they're deployed, but this kind of thing can damage the local market and slow down the roll-out of normal infrastructure. A zero-cost "Facebook internet" is a partial substitute for real internet, which worsens the market for a local ISP trying to get off the ground. A kind of price-dumping, basically.
