Free Basics isn't the answer, but going from no-internet to just-a-tiny-bit-of-internet can have a big impact on someones life.
Funnily enough, having worked for a while on projects in rural Maharashtra, the children are the path to information for those villages - they're the ones who can read and write and know the prices and share information upwards to the adults.
(the conclusion being, back then, that one should market to children...)
Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ...
Which of these is more important ? That's the big question being discussed here. And of course the people discussing how this might stand in the way of their future profits feel absolutely no need to provide an alternative ...
Chat, fb, etc is free for now, because Facebook "allows" it to be free. Once everyone is on free basics, they can do a U-turn and say only Facebook messenger, Facebook website, Facebook * is free. What are you going to do then?
What prevents them from doing this?
Letting FB or any company be a gatekeeper to net is wrong on so many levels. There are so many devious things they can do and we as people or other companies will be totally helpless.
Point 2: FB is not a gatekeeper in free basics. FB simply provides a convenient door for the local telcos to open.
Point 3: The telcos, better known as the Indian government's corrupt cronies (meaning the Indian government gave ownership away to specific individuals), were, are, and will be the gatekeepers.
Making it slightly more difficult for some multinationals (other social networks, MS, linkedin, ...) to make profits in the future does not justify taking this away. If you feel this is unfair, then either convince the Indian government to provide your brand of free internet. I'm sure the amount of money that requires is a factor 10 less of what you'd think it is, which of course still makes it half a billion dollars or so.
In case you've missed it somehow. The internet is centralizing. That's the whole point of the cloud. That is what's being defended here. You're just defending one company centralizing against another. Amazon (including ec2), Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Oracle, ... all are centralized computing platforms that give you zero say in how your software runs, how your data is kept, and you can bet your ass all of these will lock you out. That is the thing they all agree on.
You seem to think this hasn't happened yet, but think about it. This has happened, it's too late.
I do understand why telcos won't give all internet for free. In fact I'm amazed fb got them to allow any chat app at all, given that it'll kill SMS.
What I'm asking is why is potentially raising entry costs in the Indian market worth, morally speaking, denying internet to millions of people?
The Internet is a global communications network. It allows you to connect with anyone anywhere on the planet and nearby space. Without access youbare severely limited in what you can learn and do.