"The 200 Ugandan shillings ($0.05) levy is a daily charge in order to gain access to services like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook. If the user doesn’t pay upfront for those services they are blocked from using them."
Setting aside the net neutrality overtones this story has, let's admit here that these services will all reach obsolescence at some point. While they are actively used now, the future will hold the ability for any individual to create their own federated ad-hoc social network for their own communities, and it will not be as reliant on special corporate/government agreements that the listed services have. Conceivably, if the owners of QZ did not have so much stock in those companies, then the idea of their business being hampered in Uganda would not lead to the publication of such an article as this.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Mastodon/Friendi.ca would do well to update their Swahili docs. Ugandan-hosted instances might be a great compromise for the Ugandan people in this debate.
Setting aside the net neutrality overtones this story has, let's admit here that these services will all reach obsolescence at some point. While they are actively used now, the future will hold the ability for any individual to create their own federated ad-hoc social network for their own communities, and it will not be as reliant on special corporate/government agreements that the listed services have. Conceivably, if the owners of QZ did not have so much stock in those companies, then the idea of their business being hampered in Uganda would not lead to the publication of such an article as this.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Mastodon/Friendi.ca would do well to update their Swahili docs. Ugandan-hosted instances might be a great compromise for the Ugandan people in this debate.