Wikipedia Zero favours solely Wikipedia (und sister projects)

I wonder if we can get other free content along for the ride, get that zero-rated too.

If MZ doesn't like the Public Broadcasting System, I see no reason for him to misplace his rage against public television and direct it to Wikipedia. Certainly PBS forces me to see sponsorship statements that Wikipedia doesn't force me to see. I don't actually see the Wikipedia banner ads, so I can't understand how MZ has conflated his experience with Wikipedia -- where I guess he does not log in -- with his experience of PBS, whose sponsorship announcements can't be avoided even if you are a donor. I do follow the debate about PBS from time to time, but MZ's comments haven't shown up there for me yet, if he has posted them.

If MZ doesn't like the Public Broadcasting System, I see no reason for him to misplace his rage against public television and direct it to Wikipedia. Certainly PBS forces me to see sponsorship statements that Wikipedia doesn't force me to see. I don't actually see the Wikipedia banner ads, so I can't understand how MZ has conflated his experience with Wikipedia -- where I guess he does not log in -- with his experience of PBS, whose sponsorship announcements can't be avoided even if you are a donor. I do follow the debate about PBS from time to time, but MZ's comments haven't shown up there for me yet, if he has posted them. --Mike On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 8:10 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Mike Godwin wrote: >>Does this mean some platform providers will use Wikipedia Zero to >>justify their own self-serving economic alliances? Of course it does. >>But we don't have to let their propagandists define us. > > I think we should be explicit here: in exchange for zero-rated access to > Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation places a banner at the top of the > page, inserting a prominent advertisement for the associated > telecommunications company. So much for "we'll never run advertising," eh. > > I'm still digesting this thread (and I certainly agree with Liam that this > thread is a showcase for healthy and informed discussion), but I do > wonder: if Wikipedia Zero is so great, why is Wikipedia Zero only > available in "developing countries" (which we somehow make more pejorative > by using the term "Global South")? When will Wikipedia Zero be available > in the United States or in the United Kingdom? > >>What's more--and this is central--Wikipedia Zero, by encouraging >>higher usage of Wikipedia without additional costs to users, actually >>increases demand on the mobile infrastructure. Providers will have to >>increase capacity to handle the increased demand. In the long run, >>this promotes overall increased internet access in the developing >>world. That is an unalloyed positive result, in my view. > > Yeah... both Facebook and Google are trying to sell this same argument: > they're in it to bring Internet to the world, nothing sinister about that! > Of course, the reality is far different: both companies are primarily > interested in mining and selling user data to advertisers. Strange > bedfellows, to be sure. > > MZMcBride

Comparisons to PBS/TV are not a useful pro-Wikipedia Zero argument, as the TV network model is itself a convincing argument effectively used by the pro-net-neutrality people as a worst case outcome of eroding net neutrality - most people agree we need to avoid the Internet descending to a TV network model, where distribution costs must be paid by someone before the content is put onto the network. NPR/radio might be a better comparison, but again there the government grants spectrum licenses, and it still differs from 'the Internet' as content can't be pulled adhoc by the listener; the content is pushed over physically limited resources (and adding channels requires engineering advances / spectrum reorganisation, which is not as simple as laying extra cables), and someone else decides what is pushed out, and when. It seems Wikipedia Zero has 'sponsorship statements' because that was a requirement imposed by these telcos in exchange for getting free access to their networks to distributing Wikipedia Zero content and Wikimedia Foundation decided it is an acceptable requirement, so it was added to the contracts with these organisations. Many worry that there are a few slippery slopes and conundrums around our current position. Two that concern me are.. Do we want all ISPs/telco's putting a 'sponsorship statement' on top of Wikipedia content, as their requirement for allowing Wikipedia content to be sent freely across their network to the reader? In Australia, some high bandwidth content creators (e.g. Big Brother) enter into agreements with telcos to allow unrated access to their content. I am curious whether that type of sponsorship statement appear on every single website page, or just on the entry screens. If a telco provides Wikipedia content freely to their customers, but inserts a sponsorship statement like Wikipedia Zero, will Wikimedia Foundation take them to court...for distributing Wikipedia content freely without Wikimedia Foundation's blessing? Do we want other free content providers, such as Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders, to be less freely accessible than Wikipedia, because telcos only consider 'Wikipedia' as a viable loss leader, and these other free content projects dont have the human resources needed to establish contracts with telcos? Wikipedia has been built on the back of these other free content projects, with millions of volunteers who scanned/photographed/transcribed free content which has been imported into Wikipedia and sister projects. *If* we help erode net neutrality, and telcos turn the Internet into a TV model, it may not prevent Wikipedia being distributed as the telcos might be happy to use Wikipedia as a loss leader, but it will strangle the vibrant free content marketplace of which we have been a thought leader, and helped Wikipedia become what it is today. Wikimedia is not an island. On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:23 AM, Mike Godwin &lt;mnemonic(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Wikipedia Zero should be newly framed as a leading example of Public Free Knowledge.

Hoi, When you consider that Wikipedia is the most used source of information in the countires where ebola is rife, it makes these countries particularly important to have Wikipedia zero. They are. There is no way we should underestimate the importance of Wikipedia zero. It effectively saves lives. Thanks, GerardM On 9 December 2014 at 07:28, Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

As I've said elsewhere, it's percieved as desirable by many first-worlders because we equate that as "everything is equally inexpensive" to level the playing field. Except that for the vast majority of the world's population, it means "everything is equally expensive and unafordable".

If we fail to understand the necessity to make exceptions or the desirability of making Free Knowledge /effectively/ available to the world then it *is* an absolutist stance.