Why do net neutrality activists want all "zero-rating" to be prohibited? After all, consumers can benefit from that. I can understand wanting it banned if one company gains unfair advantage through anti-competitive means. However, we don't ban all instances of a company giving away a service for free (we don't ban Facebook, for instance).
Wikipedia Zero, to take a popular example, does not pay any money to cellular service providers to allow their customers to access Wikipedia for free. How is this a bad thing? And if the answer is going to be "This prevents future competitors unfairly", then Encyclopaedia Britannica could have used that exact excuse to prevent Wikipedia from following a zero-payment/free model: it unfairly prejudices users against a paid product like EB.
Further, what is wrong if a telco like iiNet in Australia provides zero-rated access to content that is colocated in place as them (thus decreasing their cost of delivery, as they don't have to pay transit costs)? As long as such colocation is not exclusive, any company that wishes to provide cheaper access to its content can do so. Why is this a bad idea? And how would you distinguish this situation from, say, a company spending money on a CDN?
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Why do net neutrality activists want all "zero-rating" to be prohibited? After all, consumers can benefit from that. I can understand wanting it banned if one company gains unfair advantage through anti-competitive means. However, we don't ban all instances of a company giving away a service for free (we don't ban Facebook, for instance).
Wikipedia Zero, to take a popular example, does not pay any money to cellular service providers to allow their customers to access Wikipedia for free. How is this a bad thing? And if the answer is going to be "This prevents future competitors unfairly", then Encyclopaedia Britannica could have used that exact excuse to prevent Wikipedia from following a zero-payment/free model: it unfairly prejudices users against a paid product like EB.
Further, what is wrong if a telco like iiNet in Australia provides zero-rated access to content that is colocated in place as them (thus decreasing their cost of delivery, as they don't have to pay transit costs)? As long as such colocation is not exclusive, any company that wishes to provide cheaper access to its content can do so. Why is this a bad idea? And how would you distinguish this situation from, say, a company spending money on a CDN?
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