
Ask HN: What do you guys think of zero rating? - throwaway43
The Indian mobile operator Airtel has proposed a new scheme called Airtel Zero here in India , which is supposedly an &quot;open&quot; platform that would allow any app maker to pay for the data so that customers can use the app without paying any data charges.<p>This is ofcourse , a blatant violation of net neutrality and has caused an uproar here in India . However they&#x27;re trying to make this into a Rich vs poor thing by saying that banning zero rating is to deny poor people access.<p>The worse thing is that both Google and Facebook are in support of this scheme even though they support net neutrality in the US. Facebook was already in violation with their Internet.org scheme but I didn&#x27;t expect this from Google.<p>If Airtel&#x27;s experiment succeeds I think that this could be replicated across the world and destroy the very character of the internet.<p>The other problem is that zero rating is a bit of a trickier debate since it&#x27;s not the customer who&#x27;s paying.<p>We need to force the tech majors to take a stand against this. What can be done to force them ?
======
arihant
Okay, this has nothing to do with supporting the poor as the comments here are
suggesting, and as Airtel is trying to paint it. Poor can avail month-long 1GB
data at $3 in India. All major providers have a plan that makes Facebook,
Whatzapp, Google, Twitter, Instagram free for $0.5 a month. We already have
plans for the poor, this is not it.

This plan is the following - if you take Airtel Zero, you cannot access any
other website. Period. That's right, no option to pay for other websites at
all. Once you opt-in, your web is restricted. This is not like the plans for
poor we already have, where you pay little or nothing for some websites, but
can use regular plans to access rest of the web. With the new Airtel Zero, you
waive off the rights to rest of the web as soon as you opt-in.

This is a net neutrality debate. We have plans for poor, this is not it.

~~~
drpgq
Wow $3 for a GB of data? I'm paying more than three times as much in Canada
and that's considered a good deal.

~~~
notahacker
$3 a GB is not cheap when it's 10% of your monthly income, which is the case
for somewhere between a quarter and a half of Indian citizens on a dollar a
day, depending on whose statistics you regard as the most representative and
accurate. And that's a number which has fallen heavily in recent years.

That certainly puts things into perspective when talking about the downside to
requiring people pay for bandwidth even if the app-owners want them to have it
for free...

~~~
arihant
That quarter and a half billion cannot afford a smartphone yet. So mobile data
scheme for apps is not a conversation about them. It is peanuts for people who
can afford a smartphone.

~~~
notahacker
I wouldn't call $3 per gigabyte "peanuts" to someone buying the ~$30 extreme
low-end Android phones, or indeed a much poorer person that possesses a
battered second-hand feature phone with a Facebook app, which could at least
theoretically be covered with this sort of program.

~~~
arihant
As I said before, we already have plans that give access to basic websites for
$0.5 a month. Facebook-only access is like $0.1 a month. But with these plans,
I can still access the rest of the web if I choose to, I just have to pay.
$0.5 is what a poor person pays for lunch on job site, just to put the price
in perspective.

I'm not arguing the free part, I'm arguing the fact that as soon as you opt-in
for the new Zero plan, the regular web just cannot be had, even for price. The
only web that will work on the phone is apps by Zero Rent providers. No
websites, even if you wish to pay for them.

And this is bad for poor people to boot. What if they want e-governance
features, no sir, wait in line and be treated poorly. What if they want to
access healthcare information, no sir, wait in private hospitals and be
treated poorly. But wait, get this, you can shop on Flipkart for no cost. Yay!

~~~
icebraining
If they want e-governance and healthcare information, why did they subscribe
to a service that didn't have them? Is there any argument that justifies this
besides "they're too stupid to know better"?

------
danieltillett
I am not sure why businesses paying the data charges of their customers is a
violation of net neutrality? It might be anti-competitive and an abuse of
market power, but unless the traffic was prioritized over other traffic how is
this a violation of net neutrality?

~~~
Xixi
If I understand correctly, someone out of data on his/her plan will be able to
access data from some businesses (who pay for the data), and not from other
"normal" businesses.

So in a sense it's a form of binary prioritization: 0 or 1.

~~~
danieltillett
It isn't a violation of net neutrality if I don't pay my cable bills and so
get cut off. I am not suggesting that it is a good idea for companies to abuse
their market power, but it is not an abuse of net neutrality to pay someone
else's bill.

~~~
wpietri
Having no service does not violate net neutrality. But net neutrality is
violated when ISPs provide selective service based on who pays them the most.
If packets are delivered differently based on business relationships, then
it's not a neutral network.

What's being described here is much more akin to cable, where many channels
pay for access to consumers.

------
wpietri
I'm always disappointed when deregulation advocates don't seem to understand
how markets work.

Free markets are great when you have a large number of relatively equal agents
interacting freely. E.g., the classic farmer's market, or the stock trading
pits of old. But the more you drift from those conditions, the less effective
they are.

Here, with large, rich players paying for access to poor, mostly-uneducated
individuals, it's a situation ripe for abuse. Especially because those
individuals won't have access to the regular Internet to help them sort
through what they're seeing.

I expect a lot of what they get will be from the sort of people who exploit
the poor, the online equivalent of payday lenders and debt relief scam
artists.

~~~
bko
I don't think having a large number of relatively equal agents interacting
freely is ever realistic. There will always be those at an advantage and they
should choose what he pursue based on their abilities. Kind of like very tall
people with an athletic disposition should consider playing basketball. On the
surface it is unfair to those under 6 feet tall but the NBA, being a market,
is most concerned with attracting the talent that should be playing basketball
rather than providing a level playing field to those who aspire to play.

In that sense, the market isn't about providing fairness to all players but
for allocating talent and abilities.

In regards to exploiting the poor, I think that sort of mind-set often results
in a dangerous kind paternalism. Protecting the poor is an excuse used for all
sort of policies that often keep the poor down (cigarette taxes, drug policy,
etc).

~~~
lake99
Not only that, it takes away an avenue for companies with large coffers from
doing charity. For example, Google might want to make all of Khan Academy
available via 'zero bandwidth' to Indian customers, by footing the bills
themselves. Forcing customers to pay for the bandwidth (when someone else is
willing to pay) goes against free-market principles.

~~~
wpietri
Free-market principles aren't a religious goal. They're tools we use to design
markets. And we do that to achieve some real-world end, like better resource
allocation, more stable social structures, or smarter, healthier citizens.

In this case, if we're writing net neutrality rule, it's easy enough to exempt
charity cases like you describe.

------
nathan_f77
If I was developing an app in India, I would love to pay for my users data.
This is a huge win for both companies and customers.

My opinion is that this should have nothing to do with the "net neutrality"
debate. It's just shifting more costs onto the host, instead of the user. The
host already pays for all the servers and outgoing bandwidth, why is it a
problem if they also pay for the other side of the connection?

And if any website can opt-in to this arrangement, then there is nothing anti-
competitive about it at all.

------
Gusfoo_2
> If Airtel's experiment succeeds I think that this could be replicated across
> the world and destroy the very character of the internet.

No - that is unlikely in the extreme. The UK has had zero-rated data and text
messages for over 5 years and it has had no impact at all.

------
jheriko
> We need to force the tech majors to take a stand against this.

Why exactly?

The crux of this argument seems to be "having more money makes you better able
to compete"

This falls out of free market capitalism. Its not going to go away without
regulation, and it seems like doing so will disadvantage swathes of poor
people for questionable benefits.

I do see the argument, but I think its quite far out of touch with reality, as
a lot of these 'internet rights' and silicon valley engineers seem to be.

~~~
hobs
More like "Having more money means you can sandbag your competitors, since you
own the verticals and give away your service to encourage usage of your walled
garden until your competitors fade into nothingness."

In regards to the swathes of poor people, we can use a similar situation
(though hyperbolic) to compare, and that is nestle giving out free formula to
breastfeeding mothers in poor countries, and that couldnt hurt anyone because
they were giving it away, right?

 _For example, IBFAN claim that Nestlé distributes free formula samples to
hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no
longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation,
the family must continue to buy the formula.[1]_

Regulation is definitely needed when a company does the equivalent of dumping
or a predatory pricing scheme. Claiming that "poor people will be hurt" is
missing the point that the robber baron isn't giving them free bread to feed
them, they give them free bread to close down the other bakeries and then
charge them for their daily bread in any way they want.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_issue)

~~~
jheriko
It should be regulated. I'm just not sure why tech majors should take this up
for us... its not in their interest, or in the interest of their customers.

Regardless as to motive, nothing will change to the people who benefit from
this...

I'm not sure what competition it will be stifling either. We seem to be
assuming that this is already a fairly balanced industry without gigantic
monopolies - which is just untrue.

I can see the philosophical argument, I just can't be in favour of it when all
we want at the core is to do is hold something back that has benefit.

------
tempodox
There is only one solution: If absolutely nobody has to pay for their mobile
data usage, then there are no “poor” people in that respect.

If “Airtel Zero” were implemented as is, then “poor” people would only see the
apps / contents that the people with the money are willing to give them. That
degree of dependency borders on modern slavery. I would rather see mobile data
made free for everyone.

~~~
nathan_f77
If you pay nothing for a service, then you are the product. Facebook and
Google are already providing enormous value for free, if you have an internet
connection. Now they want to provide it for free even if you don't pay for
your internet connection. This arrangement changes nothing about the consumer
relationship.

~~~
wpietri
Except that you no longer have access to information that they don't want you
to see. For example, they won't be able to see you explaining that for
Facebook and Google, users are the products.

~~~
icebraining
Doesn't the same happen in TV, radio, newspapers, etc? I understand why the
Internet is different (and better, imho), but that doesn't mean we should ban
other mediums. Just don't call this service Internet access.

~~~
CoryG89
I actually think this is one of the better ideas/solutions to this problem I
have yet seen in this thread. If you don't label this service as access to
"the internet" then there should be little concern as far as net neutrality
goes. As long as it is made clear to customers that they are not getting the
full internet, and instead are paying only for access to a handful of services
then I dont think this should be considered a violation of net neutrality.

~~~
wpietri
I am flabbergasted that you're just going to define the problem away. But it
certainly is easier. You can solve all net neutrality problems just by
labeling things as other things.

For the rest of us, though, that doesn't work so well, because there are
societal purposes to getting people access to the Internet. Democracy requires
an informed citizenry, and there is no better tool for that than the Internet.
Reducing multigenerational poverty similarly benefits from reducing the
digital divide:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide)

~~~
icebraining
Why don't you try engaging the argument? I think we all agree that Internet
access is important - I certainly do - but that does mean we should ban all
other mediums? If not, what makes this one different?

That we should give people access to the Internet is a red herring here. The
existence of this cellphone plan doesn't preclude us from doing so

Insteadof being outraged that this company dared to violate NN, why don't we
try to understand why would people choose this instead of Internet access? If
it's due to cost, then maybe the solution should be to provide more affordable
Internet access, so that they don't feel the need to join this plan.

~~~
wpietri
I don't think we should ban other media, and I don't know why you think I'm
obliged to defend that straw man.

New mediums come along rarely. It behooves us to be very careful in how we
adopt them. That's especially true for the Internet, which I think is more
powerful and likely to be more lasting than its historical competitors.

When television came along, there was enormous hope for its power. But its
commercial structure, at least in the US, left it to become "the idiot box".
For people who would like to pay a lot of money to constrain people to listen
to their messages, TV still exists.

it's _possible_ that Internet-- won't reduce prevent getting people proper
Internet service, but when making major societal decisions, I think we deserve
a higher standard than the _possibility_ of not fucking things up for the next
few hundred years.

I do note that in the US internet market, the reason most people's ISP is
their old telco or cable company is that poor regulation let the old oligopoly
players rebuild their oligopolies for a new medium through undercutting real
competition. That now looks impossible to dislodge, which is why we need net
neutrality regulation in the first place. So it seems plausible to me that
letting quick hits of easy money determine who gets to see what on the
Internet could establish long-term patterns that permanently undermine net
neutrality.

~~~
icebraining
_it 's possible that Internet-- won't reduce prevent getting people proper
Internet service, but when making major societal decisions, I think we deserve
a higher standard than the possibility of not fucking things up for the next
few hundred years._

You never have more than the possibility of not fucking things up. When you're
arguing against allowing people from subscribing to a service, I think they
deserve a better standard than "I know better than you what is good for you".

As I've pointed out, there have been many mediums of communication, that have
been installed for many years before the Internet appeared, yet they didn't
stop it from taking hold rather rapidly. I don't see why you shouldn't have to
explain why you think this time is different, besides "well, it might be!"

 _I do note that in the US internet market, the reason most people 's ISP is
their old telco or cable company is that poor regulation let the old oligopoly
players rebuild their oligopolies for a new medium through undercutting real
competition. That now looks impossible to dislodge, which is why we need net
neutrality regulation in the first place. So it seems plausible to me that
letting quick hits of easy money determine who gets to see what on the
Internet could establish long-term patterns that permanently undermine net
neutrality._

"Let" is not the right word. Regulation in the US was designed to build and
sustain those oligopoly players. I see no reason to assume that "easy money"
alone will provoke the same effect; the ISPs in my country all have plenty of
money, and many offer zero rating or the equivalent, and yet we still have an
healthy market.

~~~
wpietri
> When you're arguing against allowing people from subscribing to a service, I
> think they deserve a better standard than "I know better than you what is
> good for you".

Ok. You keep on thinking that. That is very nearly the basis of regulation, so
I don't see a lot of future in this discussion. Sometimes rational individual
choices have negative systemic effects, so I think it's reasonable to say, "We
know better than you what is good for all of us."

------
blfr
Wouldn't banning zero rating impact poor people the most?

It's probably why this is even an issue in the first place. In richer
countries, companies simply expect their customers to have a decent
connection.

~~~
dragonwriter
Zero rating is a thing in richer countries, too; in the US, for example,
Sprint has made deals to zero-rate selected social media services; T-Mobile
has made deals to zero-rate certain streaming audio services.

And, as in India, the advocates of the interests of the wealthy and
corporations in the US like to promote zero rating as a thing that is good for
the poor, with AEI promoting it as a tool to "narrow the digital divide". [0]

[0] [http://www.techpolicydaily.com/internet/zero-rating-
narrowin...](http://www.techpolicydaily.com/internet/zero-rating-narrowing-
digital-divide-mobile-broadband-market/)

------
denzil_correa
The telcos and the government are trying to spin this as affordable Internet
for the poor. Essentially, it does break net neutrality [0].

> At first glance it may appear that all traffic is handled equally in this
> charging model, but the fact is that once you have used your quota, the
> traffic that is exempted will be allowed to continue, while all other
> traffic will be throttled or blocked. This is clearly a case of
> discrimination between different types of traffic.

Now, if this is so altruistic and for benefit of all - I would make three
"requests" from the telecoms.

1\. Telcos should not prevent ANY app/website or any other service from being
registered on the zero rating platform.

2\. Telcos should post every detail of their financial deal with zero rating
partners public. Essentially, I would like to know if a zero rating partner is
paying for this affordability or are these costs passed on to the consumer in
secret.

I am sure since this is for the good of everyone, telcos would have no problem
agreeing to these two reasonable requests.

[0] [http://eng.nkom.no/topical-issues/news/net-neutrality-and-
ch...](http://eng.nkom.no/topical-issues/news/net-neutrality-and-charging-
models)

------
cxon
The original post

[http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-
airtel...](http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel-
news/corporate/airtel+launches+-+airtel+zero-+a+win-
win+platform+for+customers+and+marketers)

and their clarification on the Airtel Zero

[http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-
airtel...](http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel-
news/corporate/statement-from-airtel)

I feel Zero rating can be a boon or a death knell for small startups based on
Airtel decide to charge per GB of data. I don't think it about restricting
certain sites, its about giving the option to peoples to be able to access
certain services without having to recharge. I am not sure if Airtel have a
sinister design behind this at the moment.... Its more of wait and watch, keep
your fingers crossed.

------
vishnuharidas
There are two points here.

1\. Zero rating is good for customers. If Flipkart offers zero rating app,
then other competitors like Amazon, Ebay, Snapdeal etc. too are forced to
improve their service over Flipkart, or provide Zero Rating for them also.
(But from a Business perspective, this can be bad).

2\. Net Neutrality is a different thing. But here the telecom operators are
confusing people with NN and ZR, tricking the users to believe that they are
going to get internet for free once ZR is active. No, it's not like that. They
are different things.

I believe that ZR for basic communication apps (like WhatsApp, Google
Hangouts, Skype etc.) is an essential thing to do.

But still maintaining Net Neutrality is very very important.

~~~
ge0rg
_1\. Zero rating is good for customers._

This is probably more complicated. While large companies will have to follow
suit and probably buy-in into the ZR deal of large telcos, startups and small
buisnesess will essentially be cut off from (potential) customers.

For a small company, it will become a huge challenge to enter such markets -
both logistically and financially, so in the end there will be no more
Internet for the customers but only FacebookGoogleEbayNet...

~~~
vishnuharidas
@ge0rg You said it right. In this blossom of startups, the ZR will be too
heavy for startups to handle. Example is, if Uber has a ZR on Vodafone
worldwide, then no other cabs startups are going to raise. ZR is a sure death-
shot for startups and SMEs.

------
ensignavenger
If the carriers are calling this scheme 'Internet' or using that word (or
concept) to market this, then it is fraud. If they are instead calling it
'Airtel Zero' access, then they are fundamentally offering access to a
different thing from the Internet, and thus it would not be a 'net' neutrality
issue. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck- if not,
then it shouldn't be advertised as such :)

------
Zigurd
I just switched to a $50 ($40 for the third and subsequent lines) unlimited
and supposedly uncapped mobile data plan. As long as such plans area available
at reasonable prices, I don't think zero-rating some services on cheaper plans
is very evil. As other commenters have pointed out, there are plans that
restrict Web access, but that's not "zero rating." That's a walled garden.

------
lucaspiller
Does anyone know how Facebook 0 worked? That sounds like it was pretty much
the same thing:

[https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/fast-and-free-
facebo...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/fast-and-free-facebook-
mobile-access-with-0facebookcom/391295167130)

~~~
nicpottier
Facebook 0, aka internet.org still exists and is growing in many developing
countries.

Basically Facebook goes into local carriers and makes an agreement to the
effect that users can reach 0.facebook.com for free on their network. They've
now started adding other sites as well to that 'free tier'.

I imagine Facebook is paying something to the carriers for this, though at the
very start it may just be seen as a competitive advantage by the carrier so
perhaps not.

I actually find this practice super disturbing and find the naming of it as
'internet.org' even more so. The Internet is great because of the very
opposite of this type system.

Say in an alternate reality Friendster did this a decade ago, would Facebook
even exist if people had to pay to access it? Is that a state of the world we
are comfortable with?

I very much understand the arguments towards the utility of the internet (even
Facebook) to the poor and marginalized, but this isn't the right way to do it.

------
Kiro
> by saying that banning zero rating is to deny poor people access.

I may be naive but I kind of agree. I also think zero rating sounds great in
theory. The alternative is that people cannot access at all? Can you post some
arguments of why it is bad? Net neutrality doesn't tell me anything. Why would
I as a consumer care about that?

------
vnaybrdwj
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zero-rated-data-net-
neutralit...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zero-rated-data-net-neutrality-
violated-period-vinay-bhardwaj)

------
thanatropism
They have or had for a while this for Whatsapp in Brazil. I don't think it
spread much. The market sometimes does things even market theory assumes it
can't.

