&gt;  the apparent upside of Internet.org: people who wouldn&#x27;t be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it<p>Except that&#x27;s just it. It&#x27;s an apparent upside.<p>This assumes the existence of people who have phones but can&#x27;t afford internet plans. That&#x27;s not the case in India, at least. Data plans are pretty cheap, and if you can afford a phone that works on the modern internet (i.e., supports Facebook), you can afford these.<p>So it&#x27;s not really providing some benefit. It&#x27;s letting the impoverished save a small fraction of their income (okay, that is a benefit, but probably not major), and it&#x27;s moving people off the Internet onto the Facebookternet.<p>A lot of the non-Internet-users are people who don&#x27;t really want to or care to use the Internet, not due to poverty.