This can fast track poverty alleviation, since, it is proven, that access to technology reduces poverty faster than any Other medium.
But, since, today Morning a spate of posts have come out which are basically scaring us into saying, that Net-Neutrality will suffer.
Let us Understand, what Net-Neutrality ment for all of us.
Net Neutrality implied that, a small set of apps which sign up with a ISP[Either airtel via airtel zero] or a platform like Internet.org will be provided for free to people.
What are the implications of this tie-up?
a) Smaller apps will find it difficult to come to the platform.
b) So, some apps will gain monopolistic access to the system.
c) This will lead to reduction in service quality, since, lack of competition will ensure, that there is no incentive for customer service.
What could this imply further? Monopoly of a essential apps will lead to higher price inflation, and since, the ecosystem will shut down,
End Result : Disaster scenario.
But, is this the real reason? Simplistically speaking, we already have non-neutral platforms. The Web used to be an open system. people competed for space based on content. Some spent Money on content which became a huge business called SEO.
Then Steve Jobs came on board and we got an Iphone. Then apps came in. The Initial apps were all partner apps. But, slowly, the platform increased and today, a brand new ecosystem around apps exist. It is not discriminatory in terms of access.
The same story exists with android.
And Most, importantly, discovery is broken in the Mobile world. SEO just does not work. Hence, if ur building an app, You cannot bootstrap. All genuine problems which needs a solution.
We dont have mobile-neutrality. Web-Neutrality is somewhat there.
So, can we learn from this experience and build an appstore for all these free Internet services? like airtel zero and Internet.org.
Here's my thing. I have very little faith in Indian providers and non-discriminatory regimes. I would trust facebook more. But, this does not absolve facebook from providing an app platform.
facebook has significant experience in building an app platform already. Just ensure access using , an appstore mechanism. Let any damn developer apply. and Hey, you have the best developers in the Planet. Build an automatic verification tool. make this independent of Human supervision.
Dont charge anything from anyone.
About airtel, the less said, the better. Trying to convince, babus in delhi to have a backdoor. charging money from voice based apps. Dude, this aint the 19th century.
My Solution : We need a neutral appstore for Internet.org. If that happens, it does not violate Net-Neutrality.
I have very little patience for people who says, he's here to earn money. ofcourse he does. It aint a sin.
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