On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Marcin Cieslak <sa...@saper.info> wrote: > You might want to check out some discussions surrounding the Wikimedia Zero > initiative.
From my perspective, there is significant difference between Wikipedia Zero (along with similar, free of charge services) and Free Basics. The first group positively discriminates some websites, the second group negatively discriminates a part of population. I don't think the pure form of net-neutrality is sustainable. Many businesses already have deals with other businesses to provide something for free or "for free" or for reduced price via their infrastructure. The classic examples are Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola: they make a deal with a fast food restaurant to give you their products for reduced price. And when we come to bits and bytes, "reduced price" could be zero. On top of that, we have a number of Internet services of strategic importance. Wikimedia projects are one of such services. Yes, a number of Google services and Facebook are such services, as well, along with a number of services covering similar needs (Yandex and VKontakte in Russia, for example). It's good to have such services for free (before or after you spend your data limit). However, when it comes to limiting access to particular services, it creates an underclass, capable to participate just in one segment of Internet. That's quite serious. I don't think think Zuckerberg's initiative has such idea behind. It's Coca Cola-like marketing campaign. When you become that big, your marketing approach becomes big, as well. Familiarizing people with their products is clever strategy. We know that from three decades of Microsoft's tolerance of piracy in countries without enough of people capable to buy their software. Neither I think the initiative will really create a permanent underclass. People in underdeveloped regions will eventually become richer and they won't need this kind of service. Wikimedia projects will be included inside of such plans even without WMF's approval. And even if we theoretically could block access, we shouldn't do that, of course. There is one more important issue here: It's Facebook's initiative, but it's also a cartel-like approach to the market. Facebook is not the only company behind the initiative and the initiative could become quite powerful and could grow behind giving free access to limited internet just to the poorest inhabitants of the Earth. It could slip into a worldwide option, served as default in many settings. So, there are at least three important reasons why Wikimedia organizations shouldn't participate in such initiative: * Most importantly, while I don't think Free Basics will create a permanent underclass, nobody could guarantee such thing. My position is based on external factors, not on the design created by the companies participating in Free Basics. They could work hard on preserving a kind of status quo by gradually increasing access to various services, while keeping zero price. In a nightmarish scenario, we could get two Internets: one censored and one not censored. And Wikimedia shouldn't support such possible future. * It's Facebook's business, not ours. I don't think Wikimedia organizations should be outside of any business deal with for-profit companies, but I don't think our voice in such initiative could be relevant. * Finally, we belong to the movement which promotes net neutrality as one of the core values. No matter how realistic it is, we should support it. Wikipedia Zero is not net-neutral, but Wikimedia projects are of such significance that it could be tolerated. Going further into abandoning that principle would create definite divide between us and the rest of our global super-movement. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
