Why 'zero rating' is the new battleground in net neutrality debate

Zero rating is a pox upon the Internet and should be killed with fire, regardless of any perceived short term benefit to some end users. In the long term zero rating is always toxic.

There are over 800 telcos in the world. Even if zero rating was free to the app/service provider, just negotiating with each and every telco would be a huge burden.

Zero rating is, however, neither free nor available to all app/service providers. Thus zero rating creates both a toll booth and a gatekeeper who gets to discriminate against app/service providers and pick winners and loosers.

> Personally, I think zero rating is a good thing, especially as it operates in the Australian environment (or, at least, how it has operated previously).

It only feel like a good thing because Australia has an abnormal telecom market which includes such strangeness as quotas even on fixed broadband.

Without quotas zero rating is a non-issue.

> what if mobile carriers where not allowed to discriminate whom they could sell zero-rated services to, so each service provider/app should have the freedom to choose the business model that works best for themselves?

While nominally better, it would just be like putting lipstick on a pig. There would also be serious real world problems with actually enforing such a regimen.

> what if 3rd parties where allowed to buy zero-rated URLs or IPs in "bulk" from all the carriers in a geography, making it much easier to contract all mobile carriers?

My answer is pretty much the same as above, only this one is a bit more ambitious. It's basically like suggesting world peace as a solution to global conflicts. Getting all the carriers in a geographic region on board, implementing, rolling out and enforcing such a thing would almost be an effort worth a Nobel price in itself.

> preventing companies to provide zero-rated services increases the digital divide as it inhibit people who cannot afford to buy a data plan to use services. In many areas of the world, the majority of mobile consumers are on pre-paid plans and have zero credits most of the time (most countries have calling party pays, so a smartphone with zero credit is still very valuable to receive calls)

Offering zero rating as a solution to this problem is a false choice. Zero rating is providing a means of communication for free AND limiting what it can be used for. The correct choice is to provide the same means of communications for free and NOT limiting what it can be used for. That is how you remove the digital divide.

If need be this free mode of communication can be limited by speed or by amount, as is customary in the mobile world. What is not reasonable is to limit what can be done with it.

TL;DR zero rating is evil, give users a free tier or quota instead.