Hmmm, interesting idea, and I can see a lot of pros and cons to the idea. I believe the spread of information is important to unifying the planet which I see as a nessecity (as I've said before). The spread of ideas being very central to it, especially to begin with.
The cons to this idea of course are the simple facts that I can't imagine a lot of big information companies that aren't backing this being happy about it. After all free Internet destroys their revenue stream, and while those markets primarily being targeted are ones they can't deal with, big businesses typically feel the idea is to hold onto the product so if the nations develop they can sell it to them, rather than giving it away for free. I honestly can actually sympathize with the people who would be losing a potential future market, and understand why they might be upset. I think the plan is crazy enough to have not seen any immediate response, but if it looks close to happening I can see a pretty big battle happening.
Another con to this idea is of course being able to trust the people being given this, if all else goes according to plan. I mean they want this to be unregulated from how it sounds (though I could be wrong about that), and that raises concerns from me given what usually happens when the second and third world gets their hands on new technology. I just recently was taking about the "pay line" scams that we saw being as thick as flies a decade or so ago when second and third would countries got the abillity to do it. We've had enough trouble from all of these cons coming from countries like Nigeria as it is, without compounding the problem a thousand fold.
See, I'll be the first to tell you that it's a beautiful vision to think of people getting access to something new, and then taking advantage of it to increase their standard of living and live better and more productive lives. I'm sure the guys setting this up are thinking about the possibilities for things like education, and giving poorer nations a bigger voice in the international community... however that's rarely how these things work out. The first thing the world community is liable to notice is a bunch of people from third world countries who ignore international law running scams and causing havoc, people, especially desperate people, don't tend to think in terms of long term benefits, but in terms of how they can get something in their hands right then.
Also as someone pointed out already, The Internet being a basic human right is kind of laughable as an idea when you consider issues like food, clean water, clothing, and shelter which are all in short supply in the places this is supposed to reach. I mean how are these guys going to have computers to receive the internet, never mind the power infrastructure to run them? Do we have the peacecorps try and build these things and give away computers bought with charity donations? If so how do we prevent Warlords from killing that idea almost instantly?
These parts of the world are wretched because there is only so much in terms of resources on the planet, and we're already straining our supply, hence all the issues with clearcutting forests, strip mining, and oil depletion. There isn't enough for everyone on the planet to have a decent standard of living, and it blows chips, but the guys we're talking about are the big losers. Even the guys doing this charity are hardly thinking in terms of wanting to change placces with them, or give up all their stuff. The problem here is a truely huge one, and one that isn't going to be solved until we find a way to get more resources through space travel or whatever. In the overall scope of things, The Internet hardly seems like a priority.
As I said, I see pros and cons to it, in the end if people want to invest the money in it, I'm not going to flat out say it's a horrible idea, but I'll be surprised if what happens actually manages the vision in the heads of those setting it up.
