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| By MakeUsesOf |
China
doesn’t allow Facebook. Just because India does, that doesn’t mean the country
should welcome Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to carve the Internet into
pocket boroughs, let alone his preaching that this is a great way to connect a
billion people to their digital future.
Facebook’s “Free Basics” service, which gave
some wireless subscribers in India access to a clutch of pre-selected websites
without having to pay data charges, was put in abeyance recently at the request
of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Activists say the
programme threatens Net neutrality, the principle that all Internet sites
should be equally accessible. The regulator is yet to decide whether a
differential pricing regime for some websites or applications will be allowed.
Concerned that Free Basics’ days may be
numbered in India, Zuckerberg has been running a petition campaign by Facebook
users to influence the decision. Throw in a rebuttal to a critical article in
the country’s largest-selling English daily, dozens of splashy ads targeting
activists in major newspapers, and finally an op-ed by Zuckerberg himself, and
you have a picture of just how high the stakes are for the social networking
site. India is already the company’s second-biggest market by users after the
US.
Facebook’s argument is that Free Basics could
speed up the growth of new mobile Internet users in India by as much as 50%. It
also claims that “only a tiny (single digits) per cent stay on free services
after 30 days.”
Now, it’s highly unlikely that within a month most
people who got on to Free Basics discovered so much value in the World Wide Web
that they decided to pay for the full experience. Here’s a more likely
explanation: The poor, too, have tastes. Maybe they saw so little value in the
Free Basics fare that they decided to pay for data, even if that meant having
to cut back on some other household expense.
Therein lies the catch. Even after people
start paying data charges to access Google and everything else that’s
unavailable through Free Basics, they can still use Facebook for free. “This
isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests there aren’t even any ads in the
version of Facebook in Free Basics,” Zuckerberg claims. The second part of that
statement may be true. It still doesn’t validate the first.
Think
about it. If every telecom company in India gave a free Facebook Messenger
option, there’s virtually zero hope for an Indian version of a QQ or WeChat,
homegrown Chinese instant messaging services with functionalities that are
streets ahead of what Zuckerberg has to offer.
Facebook says it won’t be a gatekeeper, and is
ready to subject its content selection process to third-party scrutiny. But
which venture capitalist will even entertain the idea of financing a newer,
better mousetrap where existing mousetraps come with free cheese?
Even if one believes Zuckerberg to be entirely
altruistic in his mission, how does Facebook guarantee good behaviour by
wireless carriers? There’s a war going on for fourth-generation mobile-phone
users in India, and indeed in much of emerging Asia. The network owners are
spending billions of dollars to acquire spectrum and customers, and to upgrade
their networks.
All this investment may make sense only if the
service providers can get a slice of digital content revenue, for which they
may have to own the production companies. Once they do, they will have an
incentive to protect their content from worthier challengers by denying
consumers access to the latter’s websites and applications. Gresham’s law will
prevail, and bad content will drive out good. Instead of an exciting future,
Zuckerberg’s billionth customer in India may be delivered to a wasteland where
the only meaningful thing he or she can do for free is to send friend requests.
This
column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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