2015 was a great year

There was never a doubt in my mind that the Battle for Net Neutrality would one day come to India, having seen it be fought out in the US. The simple reason for this was always going to be the humongous population that had yet to get a taste of the internet. With almost every individual owning a cellphone by the end of the naughties, it was only a matter of time (and infrastructure) that they would soon discover the web.

The community’s reaction to Airtel Zero and Facebook Free Basics in the first half the year was amazing — personally, I never expected to see such a mass movement with most of my engineering friends themselves unaware of Net Neutrality. John Oliver certainly played his part, so did All India Bakchod, but it was mostly down to the amazing guys at savetheinternet.in.

Do not underestimate how dangerously close we were to doomsday — a number of companies with deep pockets signed up for Airtel Zero and Free Basics because it suited them, with most withdrawing only when they saw the outrage. The fact that TRAI finally asked Reliance to hold off on Free Basics despite the millions spent by Facebook to sway opinion goes to show effective the savetheinternet.in campaign was.