Hi mike,
That pipes are dumb is fundamental for having cheap Internet access. Most
contracts for Wikipedia zero are done with telcos which either want to
catch up in getting more reach in the population, or those which have a
higher price for data. Not allowing them to use wikipedia to influence
competition and justify higher prices is helping to bridge the digital
divide. I do not find it fair that people in financially less favored
countries have to pay more per gigabyte traffic in USD than people in rich
countries. This gets even worse if one compares percentage of income spent
for a gigabyte.
The only well balanced answer out of Wmf I saw up to now clearly showing
the conflict this offering is in is the excellent WOP statement from gale.
it is easy to design a solution which is compliant to net neutrality: if a
person is reading wikipedia 200 MB traffic are free, any content. I d
consider it a fundamental failure of the wmf legal department, especially
yana, that they are not capable or willing to negotiate such contracts.
Rupert
On Dec 1, 2014 4:14 PM, "Mike Godwin" <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Tim Landscheidt writes:
I think on the contrary Wikipedia Zero
illustrates nicely
why net neutrality is so important: Wikipedia Zero favours
solely Wikipedia (und sister projects), while contradicting
or simply other opinions and resources bite the dust.
I'm not following your reasoning here. I don't see any sense in which
Wikipedia Zero is contradicting other opinions or resulting in
resources that "bite the dust." Wikipedia Zero is not rivalrous in any
economic sense that I'm aware of.
This mainstreaming, forming a monopolistic cabal
on all
things information is why I am a strong proponent of net
neutrality. The ease with which information can be shared
nowadays should be used so that more people provide their
views, not more people consume one view.
So, you'd rather have users pay by the bit for Wikipedia on their
mobile devices? This does not serve Wikipedia or its users in the
developing world. The chart I use here shows you what the cost of
broadband access is in the developing world, which relies primarily on
mobile platforms.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141201000351-209165-wikipedia-zero…
And I have severe doubts that Wikipedia Zero
fulfils actual
needs from the perspective of sustainable development.
But you haven't said what those severe doubts are. Having spent the
last couple of years working on access projects in the developing
world, I haven't encountered an alternative model that doesn't result
in higher prices for subscribers. As the chart I reproduce indicates,
in some places in the developing world, the annual cost of broadband
access exceeds the average per capita income. I do not see how it
serves Wikipedia's mission to require individual users to pay so much
for Wikipedia access.
--Mike
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