This is a good point that both supporters and opponents of this initiative should gather more information about: who actually accesses services using this Facebook program? Is it in fact the previously unconnected?

And vice-​versa: when you talk to the unconnected, what is preventing them from getting online? Are data costs the main barrier? Anecdotally (and admittedly my personal conversations aren’t an exhaustive survey) in India even from lower-​income people I hear people talk a lot more about needing money to buy/​repair a phone compared to anyone saying they can’t afford a data plan.

Most of the "previously unconnected" are people who know the value of the Internet (It's used pervasively enough that people who don't use it still have an idea of what it is), have the capability of using it, but don't want to. Very few of them are ones who can't afford it. I mean, they exist, sure, but for them the cost of a phone that can handle the internet well is probably the deciding factor, not the data plan prices. These phones cost Rs. 5k+ (cheapest I can think of) and last maybe two years without repair. Basic data plans can come at Rs 100 a month, prepaid data is generally even cheaper. No, the data plan is not the deciding factor here.

Internet.org is probably more likely to move existing Internet users onto the walled garden, because everyone loves free things.

I don't know if this is practically true for a lot of these countries. In a lot of these countries, a vast majority of the population doesn't have easy education, and are often poor. Countries like India have a much better percentage (but still small) of the population that can afford the internet, that ISPs are incentivized to grow and expand. Countries like Zambia -- not so much (I don't actually know if internet.org is in Zambia). I don't know that a small business in Zambia has the capital to expand considering how many people can afford it.

Interesting question.

Should foreign companies be allowed to create monopolies, because potential local competitors do not have enough capital currently?

I guess the obvious answer is no, but its still an interesting line of discussion.

  >I don't know that a small business in Zambia has the capital to expand considering how many people can afford it.

The answer is yes. There is a Liquid Telecom[1] is laid lots of fibre in Zambia, with the intention of having fibre coverage from 'Cape to Cairo'

1.http://liquidtelecom.com/news-events/news/263-liquid-telecom...

> All of the proposed charitable objectives(as opposed to Facebook's own interests) would be served by just providing free internet with a limited data cap. Customers would want more data badly, local entrepreneurs would be free to make any kind of app to serve the poor...

Great point. "Small data payloads" would become a factor in competition, too.