Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access

Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access
nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/technology/facebook-leads-...

> Twitter ... has struck its own deals ... in more than 100 countries to offer some free Twitter access; ... it bundled free Facebook access with some of its Asha feature phones.; Globe Telecom, has used free Twitter, Facebook or Google access

> "if you can afford a phone, I think it would be really good for you to have access to the Internet."

Yet... it seems like they're equating Twitter, Facebook and Google to "The Internet".

> Cut the cost of providing mobile Internet services to 1 percent of its current level within five to 10 years by improving the efficiency of Internet networks and mobile phone software.

Now how that metric is measured, I'd like to know. In countries with $10 a month plans, does that mean a 10 cent a month plan instead? Somehow I don't think so. Or do they mean to say by that that Google, Twitter and Facebook will be quota-free?

> Facebook is already working on techniques to reduce the average amount of data used by its Android mobile app from the current 12 megabytes a day to 1 megabyte without users noticing.

That seems like more of an incentive on carriers to make Facebook quota free as much as anything else... I mean what good is that if you aren't going to:

> tackle some thorny infrastructure issues that are huge barriers in the developing world, particularly the long-distance transmission of data to far-flung places.

So, this is no Loon. What is this then?

> “We’re focused on it more because we think it’s something good for the world,” he said, “rather than something that is going to be really amazing for our profits.”

Being the founder of a publicly traded company that had a big IPO, I'm sure the emphasis is on "really amazing for our profits". Having access to Facebook, even at the detriment of other services, being something good for the world apparently is now uncontroversial enough that even the NY Times doesn't report critically.

This is how net neutrality dies, people. This is how the World Wide Web disappears into a rapidly diminishing sea of walled gardens. This is, unlike Loon, really more about ensuring that the next billions of people on the web never consider net neutrality as natural thing.