Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
Commercials showing up on TV this week by facebook, promoting their "charity" to bring affordable internet to people in parts of the world who don't have it... which is rather self-serving, because if they can get more people on the internet, they can make more money from them joining Facebook.

I guess they've gained all the money they can now from the markets that have affordable internet that Facebook have reached saturation point, to now need to get more people from developing markets onto the internet so that it opens up more markets, or else their profits will plateau/stagnate or drop off.

It's like a drug dealer setting up a charity to give out free needles to the community... and leave it up to the drug-users to find something to use them with, which the dealer can then profit from.

For my own amusement, I had a look to see what sort of financial return Facebook are looking at with this Charity...

http://internet.org/press
It says that 2/3s of the world do not have internet access.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-p...on/#milestones
Global population is currently estimated to be about 7.3B.

That equates to 2.43B who have access to internet.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/
There are currently 1.3B users of Facebook, which equals 53% of those people who have internet access. (I doubt they will get too much more saturation, like maybe 60-70%, which means they need other means to increase Revenue & Profit, as it's not enough to keep earning Billions of Profit each year, Shareholders demand an increase in the Profit amount, or else they'll sell up and buy something else, which lowers the total value of the company and drive off other Shareholders)
Facebook was worth US$104B in February 2012.
Revenue from things like advertising on Facebook and on the other entities they have bought-out, earned them US$6B in 2013.

If their "charity" succeeds in getting affordable internet to the other 2/3s of the population in the world, and continues with a minimum of 53% saturation of the internet marketplace, that's a potential increase of US$12B annual revenue, taking it up to US$18B every year, back into the pockets of Facebook shareholders.

Charity?
Due to a conflict of interest, or just the ulterior motives of greed, Facebook is looking at a potential return of US$12 Billion profit from a "charity" venture that should be done without the hope for a reward... so who's really benefiting from this so called Charity?

And why do people in developing and impoverished conditions "need" internet so desperately?
Facebook (and other Billion Dollar corporations) should be trying to end poverty and starvation first, then maybe help provide luxuries to the world like internet and personal devices/computers for them to profit from.

Their true motives are clearly being spun to look like the impoverished people in the world would rather have internet access than food or shelter, or living free of fear from the injuries, raping or death of war.

(unlike Microsoft's founder who is spending half a Billion US Dollars trying to eradicate Malaria... which isn't being done to generate future sales in Windows computers)


Okay... that was a little rantish, because I hate seeing the excessive corporate greed of companies and people who already have Billions of Dollars to them, and yet, that's still not enough to satisfy their greed.
All the while, there are millions of their fellow Human Beings suffering with nothing, that they could be helping... but instead want to find ways to make money off them, like having them work for slave rates in 3rd world countries, or make them become a consumer of their products even if they can't afford it, or it is a product that is over-priced (like necessary common medications that are patented by corporations) or has poor quality... or completely unnecessary (billions were made from cigarettes that were designed to be more addictive than regular tobacco or cigars, yet became more toxic as a by-product of those added chemicals).