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If people want to use Facebook then why shouldn't they have the choice of doing so without additional cost?Because now a potential Facebook competitor is now artificially on an uneven playing field because access to Facebook is free and access to the competitor costs mobile data (on top of naturally being on an uneven playing field because of network effects). It's short-term good for Facebook users, yes, but if you believe in competition / innovation, it has negative structural effects.
If accessing things without additional cost is good, people should have the choice of accessing everything without additional cost, not just Facebook and Wikipedia.
> Many mobile providers zero-rate music streaming such as Spotify. Is that bad too?
Yes. EFF has come out strongly against T-Mobile's "Binge On" program (see e.g. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... ), and that (plus the truly awful reaction of the T-Mobile CEO, who clearly doesn't realize that his customers include EFF members / supporters) is why I quit and moved to AT&T's prepaid plan, which as far as I know does not have the same scheme. AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites.
I think it's important to stick up for the sort of products you want to see in the world long-term, for prisoners'-dilemma reasons.
Because now a potential Facebook competitor is now artificially on an uneven playing field because access to Facebook is free and access to the competitor costs mobile data (on top of naturally being on an uneven playing field because of network effects). It's short-term good for Facebook users, yes, but if you believe in competition / innovation, it has negative structural effects.
If accessing things without additional cost is good, people should have the choice of accessing everything without additional cost, not just Facebook and Wikipedia.
> Many mobile providers zero-rate music streaming such as Spotify. Is that bad too?
Yes. EFF has come out strongly against T-Mobile's "Binge On" program (see e.g. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... ), and that (plus the truly awful reaction of the T-Mobile CEO, who clearly doesn't realize that his customers include EFF members / supporters) is why I quit and moved to AT&T's prepaid plan, which as far as I know does not have the same scheme. AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites.
I think it's important to stick up for the sort of products you want to see in the world long-term, for prisoners'-dilemma reasons.