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Facebook and Google's Race To Zero
theodp (442580) writes "As Facebook and Google battle to bring the Internet to remote locations, Alicia Levine takes an interesting look at the dual strategy of Zero Rating and Consolidated Use employed by Google's FreeZone and Facebook's 0.facebook.com, websites which offer free access to certain Google and Facebook services via partnerships with mobile operators around the world. By reducing the cost to the user to zero, Levine explains, the tech giants not only get the chance to capture billions of new eyeballs to view ads in emerging markets, they also get the chance to effectively become "The Internet" in those markets. "If I told you that Facebook's strategy was to become the next Prodigy or AOL, you'd take me for crazy," writes Levine. "But, to a certain degree, that's exactly what they're trying to do. In places where zero-rating for Facebook or Google is the key to accessing the Internet, they are the Internet. And people have started to do every normal activity we would do on the Internet through those two portals because it costs them zero. This is consolidated use. If Facebook is my free pass to the Internet, I'm going to try to do every activity possible via Facebook so that it's free." The race to zero presents more than just a business opportunity, adds Levine — it also presents a chance for tech companies to improve lives. And if Google and Facebook fall short on that count, well, at least there's still Wikipedia Zero."
"If I told you that Facebook's strategy was to become the next Prodigy or AOL, you'd take me for crazy,"
That's not crazy, that's obvious. You're approximately the millionth pundit on the ball with regards to Facebook's strategy.
I don't understand. Am I the only person left who really doesn't want anything for free?
I don't play F2P games because they suck. I don't want to run my internet activity through the portal at Starbucks or watch "ad-supported" television. No, I don't want that t-shirt with your company's logo on it, even if you're handing it out for free at the event.
I'm really OK with paying for stuff. I'll even pay extra for really good stuff. I don't even like getting stuff for free. I donate to The Document Foundation when I download Libreoffice because I want to pay my way.
On the other hand, I understand perfectly the notion of using filesharing to get better service or for political purposes. If Ubisoft doesn't want to release a demo for its latest game, I'm happy to use the one the Internet makes for me because I've been burned before by Ubisoft (or EA, or whoever). And if the torrent works better than the buggy mess you released, I'll download it in a second. But even then, I'll donate to the party providing the service. It's not a moral issue, it's strictly based on my own best interest.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not if facebook/google has an agreement with the internet provider that all traffic to and from facebook/google is not billed to the end user but is payed by facebook/google.
... which is a violation of Net Neutrality.
DNS requests still count; and many operators are rounding traffic to 100KB intervals. Meaning if you open a free Facebook or Google page and thus results in a 0.5 KB of DNS requests, this counts as 100KB of traffic. Also, mobile pages consume much less traffic - especially ones for dumbphones and/or compressed by something like the Opera Mini proxy. So in the end using these "free" sites doesn't really save much - except for cases when you primarily view pictures.
They'll make it up in volume
No, That is pretty much what every startup has been trying to become when it grows since AOL,
And then there are those like me... A non-startup who is trying to grow the absolute least possible, in fact, the goal is to become the inverse of Prodigy or AOL. By working to knit together distributed technologies to leverage the machines you already have and a network that isn't owned by anyone can thus profit everyone. Unfortunately, some sophomoric attempts have failed and left a bad taste in folks mouths, and the "web" of data silos is caustic to the distributed notion that everyone is a peer and there is no gate-keeping server or client at the packet level, even though that is the very notion that gave the Internet the democratizing and self healing properties such data silos exploit for profit.
Realize the truth: Through these centralized services no one can truly using the Internet to its fullest. There need be no middle-men besides our ISPs for grandma to remotely comment on the photos in my vacation folder. It is the crappy state of pre-Internet operating systems that is to blame for the sad state of affairs, IMO.
I think Facebook won the race to zero long ago. Zero long term viability, zero morality, zero innovation strategy = zero chance of being around in 20 years. They have no depth of innovation or base of loyalty beyond people waiting for the next thing and their friends to migrate. They know they are MySpace, which is why they are spending billions buying up everything in sight in the hopes to finding the innovation and depth that define long term tech company survival. But like most companies without a culture of ingenuity all they can do is buy the current cool thing and run it into the ground. Jokes about this era will be the the way people fixated on the worth of something with so little value. At least the 2000 bubble was about many new ideas being tested and failing. Facebook's value is entirely hinging on the insane concept that somebody can't MySpace them just as quickly. It will be interesting when the market wakes up to that reality.
... which is a violation of Net Neutrality.
... which doesn't apply to countries outside the US
It also doesn't apply to countries inside the US. The FCC doesn't have the necessary power to create net neutrality regulations, and Congress has decided that they aren't a good idea, so there are no Net Neutrality regulations in force in the US either.
I see this as a way to become a "walled garden" for anyone using their free service eventually....
This is for the stuff facebook and Google are doing to bring internet access to places that have none at present...
Once the full system is up they invent scarcity somehow to justify charging extra to visit non-google sites
Thank you Dave Raggett
I only have data on Russian operators (which also operate in other countries such as India, Vietnam and Eastern Europe):
MTS: default rounding is 100 KB
Beeline (partially owned by Telenor): default rounding is 150 KB
Megafon (partially owned by TeliaSonera): default rounding is 100 KB
Tele2: default rounding is 100 KB
If you choose a "data" tariff, rounding is usually 1 KB, but calls are much more expensive.
Also, most operators provide reasonably priced ($5-$15/month) mobile data packages which have a daily/monthly quota and lower your speed to 64KB/s when the quota is exceeded.
All three operators have access to the "free" Facebook and also local social networks. But because of the rounding, it's not free at all and only suitable for occasional use, otherwise it's much easier to just get a proper data package.
I think Facebook now actually _is_ the new AOL. And that portends a significant downfall in future profits.
Grandma loved AOL because it was easy. Then her son created a site on Geocities. Then her grandkid's band had a MySpace site.
Then finally it got easy enough to post baby pictures on the fBook and that site collected a boatload of users--all of whom specifically chose that site consciously and many of whom don't use it anymore. Sure, Zuckerberg can force newbies to use his site pretty much exactly the way AOL did by plastering everybody with installation CDs
The fBook has probably got all the sticking power of popularity that AOL has. It's still around apparently, but it ain't big business and it ain't the internet and it ain't even on anybody's minds anymore.
Facebook used to be the new AOL. Now it is turning into the current AOL. Technology, like life, moves on.
Yes, it does cost them zero. There is no charge from the mobile operator.
free access to certain Google and Facebook services via partnerships with mobile operators around the world.
It's not a new thing, either; my Kindle Paperwhite gives me access to the Amazon store, for free, practically all over the world (possibly also Wikipedia). My previous Kindle allowed me browser access to the whole internet, at least when I tried it. Unfortunately my little island was, at that time, one of the few places around the world where the service wasn't available, but by going to the right part of the coast I could connect to French mobile networks.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Why QoS should prioritize VoIP over bittorrent? If both customers are paying equally, the bottleneck should apply to them equally.