Donating money directly almost never helps in the long run. I think Zuckerberg is doing what he thinks is good, and I don't think free internet to farmers will do any bad. It might help only a few and by a little amount, but that is still better than nothing. Who are we to decide how somebody else organizes their charity?
Change at a fundamental level is a good long-term goal, but do you want to make people wait 5-15 years for that, instead of getting help in the next week? Will getting free internet slow down the fundamental change?
I am not saying that donating money is always a good option, but it is better than giving free Internet least of all keeping whatsapp or facebook as a "basic" need.
Does it intend to serve ads? How does ads work? Isn't one aspect of ads involve creating needs where there were previously none? Does it involve injecting insecurities (Ex: You are a loser if you are not fair) into the minds of the gullible and make them buy buy buy...
So, what If the end result of this is that suddenly the teenage kids of these farmers starts to spend more amount of money on cosmetics (because of Ads or to make them look good in "selfies"). Will that do them good?
What? The debate about the benefits of direct cash-transfers vs. more managed forms of aid is alive and well in 2015.
> Do you think donating some money to farmers is going to help in any way? The government has been doing that for a long time (through subsidies and minimum purchase prices)
You're talking about two different things. Subsidies are different than unconditional cash transfers, the latter of which there has been recent promising research on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_cash_transfer
https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/publications/Haushofer_Shapi...
Of course it would. They could buy new, better equipment, tools, fertilizers, seeds, animals etc. My country (Lithuania) joined EU in 2004 and started direct payments to farmers via projects, that helped A LOT. Now we have big, modern cooperatives and companies that sell products worldwide instead of small, inefficient farms. What I don't understand, how could Facebook (and friends) help them? I doubt that even an unlimited Internet would be useful without an extensive education, as most older/uneducated people struggle to use even a simple cell phone.
