Er, Mike, this is a minor point but your signature seems to indicate that you were general counsel for over a millennium---very impressive! Personally I think that Zero should be evaluated from an impact perspective. While it's indisputable that it's strategically aligned with the WMF mission, if the message isn't reaching the audience is strategic alignment a good enough argument to keep chugging? The Foundation has taken a lot of flak for taking stances like that---totally strategically aligned, sure, but nil for impact. Seems to me that in its current form it's just going to drag along---Zero either needs a clear procedural rethink or it needs to be would down. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> wrote: Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view. The anti-competitive nature of zero-rated services is the exact point Thomas Lohninger makes in the presentation I linked to earlier.[1] (Comments on Wikipedia Zero specifically start at time code 40.45.) ---o0o--- Imagine if Encyclopaedia Britannica had a service like this 10 years ago. Something like Wikipedia never could have come into existence, because there would already be one incumbent player that's hugely dominant, that has free access to all the customer base. And it doesn't matter if it's the best service ... but it's free. And so people will use that. And Wikipedia as a community project never would have taken off and come to the point where they are right now. ---o0o--- Would you really argue with that? Facebook Zero and Wikipedia Zero are transparently about getting to market early, ahead of other corporate players, and establishing dominant positions before others – including non-Western, home-grown solutions – can get a foot in the door. AccessNow[2] takes the same view: ---o0o--- Wikimedia is not alone in forging “zero-rating” deals with telcos. Facebook has also struck deals to offer low-data versions of its services in both developed and developing countries. But Wikimedia argues that unlike Facebook Zero, its service is non-commercial, and therefore deserves a special Wikipedia carve-out because no money is changing hands in exchange for prioritization over other services. No money, no net neutrality violation. This reasoning fails to pass the smell test. The company’s own recently updated terms of service recognize that payment and benefit need not be monetary. In fact, Wikimedia is using its well-known trademarks as currency in deals with telecom partners as it seeks to acquire more users via Wikipedia Zero. Current users understand that the revolutionary nature of the internet rests in its breadth and diversity. The internet is more than Wikipedia, Facebook, or Google. But for many, zero-rated programs would limit online access to the “walled gardens” offered by the Web heavyweights. For millions of users, Facebook and Wikipedia would be synonymous with “internet.” In the end, Wikipedia Zero would not lead to more users of the actual internet, but Wikipedia may see a nice pickup in traffic. As the Wikimedia Foundation claims to know, the diversity and plurality of knowledge the internet can deliver is, in essence, what makes net neutrality so important; equal treatment of data results in equal access to all. It’s hard to see how zero-rated services can comport with this principle. In addition, suggesting that free access to Wikipedia or Facebook is the solution to limited internet access in the developing world is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It leaves the underlying, complex causes of the digital divide untreated. Moreover, offering services that don't count against data caps, in developed and less-developed countries alike, tips the balance in favour of zero-rated services, effectively salting the earth of low-cost net neutral alternatives in the future. The long-term effect of these services will be a decline in innovation and competition online — with a particular bias against homegrown services in favor of companies based thousands of miles away in Silicon Valley — and, ironically, a reduction in access to information and knowledge. ---o0o--- "Fails to pass the smell test." "Salting the earth." The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which you used to work for before you took your job at Wikimedia, makes the same point about the anti-competitive nature of zero-rated services, specifically with reference to Wikipedia Zero:[3] ---o0o--- It goes without saying that users will be much more inclined to access a zero rated service than one for which they need to pay, and that this tilts the playing field in favor of the zero rated content owner. On its face, this isn't neutral at all. Yet some have argued that it is worth allowing poor consumers to access at least part of the Internet, even if they are shut out from accessing the rest of it because they can't afford to do so. However, we worry about the downside risks of the zero rated services. Although it may seem like a humane strategy to offer users from developing countries crumbs from the Internet's table in the form of free access to walled-garden services, such service may thrive at the cost of stifling the development of low-cost, neutral Internet access in those countries for decades to come. ---o0o--- These organisations have excellent credentials, and they all argue that developing countries are taken advantage of, in line with a centuries-old tradition. It's internet colonialism. Wikimedia is behaving like an exploitative corporate player here, striking deals with other first-world corporate players interested solely in their bottom line. Since the beginning of the year, at least three Facebook Zero/Wikipedia Zero bundles have appeared on Facebook's Internet.org website. Plus ça change ... [1] http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6170_-_en_-_saal_g_-_201412… [2] https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2014/08/08/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality… [3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-div…