It reads like giving away free access to certain sites, is the same as making premium internet access. Am I missing something? Facebook hate aside, this is a change meant to give something away. Right?
Yes, it gives away free access of 38 sites. But by doing so, they also encourage more people to forgo purchasing complete internet plans and hence accessing all of the other millions of websites out there. This indirectly drives traffic to this 38 sites that they’ve picked through a very skewed and opaque process, and undermines the concept of net neutrality.
I think the worry is about the other direction. Want to offer something to people who only pay for this limited access? Then you better don't do anything these sites don't like, because you have to use them to communicate with your customers (unless you are already big and powerful enough to negotiate such deals yourself)
But people won't know there is "full" Internet access, or will be unable to justify the cost versus making do with the "free 38".
At present in the UK my monthly broadband connection costs just over one day of minimum-wage salary. Or nearly a week of groceries. I can see how easily that could be seen as a worthwhile saving for people on low incomes.
Is your theory that, people who can already afford to buy such access, will now not want to buy access to the rest of the Web / Internet - despite the value proposition offered by that?
Funneling people to a restricted number of websites by making them easier to access (and money matters for a large number of Indians, spending ~2.5 USD a month for 500MB 3G internet is considered a luxury) and then profiting off advertising on those websites definitely feels like it skews the balance in favour of these who run said 'approved' websites.
Netscape wa giving its browser away for free too. I remember I was downloading it from netscape.com without paying. What made Microsoft subject to an antitrust investigation was bundling IE with Windows. MS lost the case but too late for Netscape.
To answer another reply to your post, that's also the difference with Linus distributing Linux for free. No bundling. Furthermore there is the open source vs closed source issue which is no small difference too.
I really never paid for it. According to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator it was free for non commercial users. There were a few changes along the months but eventually "the full version of the browser continued to be made available for free online".
Giving away IE for free hasn't worked that well for Microsoft anyway. Open Source communities giving away *BSD's and Linux for free has been disastrous for Microsoft, on the longer run.
Android and iOS have eaten Microsoft's lunch big time.
It reads like giving away free access to certain sites, is the same as making premium internet access. Am I missing something? Facebook hate aside, this is a change meant to give something away. Right?