Comment by srinivasan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by srinivasan | Hacker News Reader

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You brought up three issues: (i) Anti-competitiveness in music streaming (ii) Anti-competitiveness in social networks (in developing regions) (iii) Effect of zero-rated services on congestion

(i) http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/music-freedom-list.html This is a large enough list that I wouldn't worry about anti-competitiveness. It is still them vs. everyone else, but looking at the list right now, the barriers to entry cannot be that high, which means any anti-competitive effect cannot be that high either. I and most others in my income category (college undergrads) are willing to accept this in order to have free music streaming.

(ii) Facebook (in some parts of the developing world) is a slightly different issue, and not necessarily one that I agree with. Still, zero rating popular websites in the developing world seems to be win-win-win for consumers, carriers, and content providers, and ignoring market forces is simply not a solution. Especially if the target demographic simply cannot afford to pay for data - this is an entirely different market and I don't have the experience to form an opinion on this. Edited my original post to remove Facebook.

(iii) Let's assume all paid traffic should be treated equally. And to keep things fair to paying customers, paid traffic should be prioritized over free traffic. I'm willing to bet this already happens indirectly - by lowering the music quality when the network is congested.

But what if I have Spotify Premium - I (indirectly) pay for my traffic, so why should your maps app be any more important?

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Obviously there are tough questions here, and a "one size fits all" net neutrality approach for wireless and broadband might not be the best solution.

If wireless was as cheap and fast as broadband, I would be all for net neutrality on wireless. But it's not. They are different 'products' in economic terms (even if they have a similar end result and "feel the same"), and I think it's therefore okay for policies that govern them to be different.

While I appreciate your thoughtful response, all of your points evade my questions.

Especially your (iii) which makes a pretty invalid assumption about paid traffic all paying the same rates. Do you know this is true for current paid traffic? I would bet it's entirely not true. Even if it is, paid traffic being prioritized over free traffic is essentially reinforcing the internet slow-lane.

Nothing of what you said replies to the difficulties in competing against Facebook or other internet giants when they're paying to prevent competition from newcomers.

Sorry, but you sound like a telecom/cable apologist.

I didn't say anything that could be construed as an apologist argument for the cable industry, or even the wireless industry. You can only accuse me of being a T-mobile apologist - and what they are doing hugely benefits me, considering my limited budget. And I'm not alone.

  Nothing of what you said replies to the difficulties in competing against Facebook or other internet giants when they're paying to prevent competition from newcomers.

1) I argued that zero-rating music services isn't as anti-competitive as it's made it out to be. Since 27 services (many of which I hadn't heard of) made it onto the list, it can't be that hard for a newcomer to get onto the list.

2) Facebook Zero is a developing world issue. I said earlier that I don't have the experience to comment on developing-world issues, but let me take a stab at it now (this is sort of long): if you lived in a part of Africa that had no electricity but had cellphone reception (this is quite common), there's a good chance you would rather have Facebook and Wikipedia for free on your phone, as opposed to having a level playing field among all services yet being able to afford none of them. (<-- TL;DR)

Of course Facebook isn't being purely benevolent in offering this for free - they want to increase their MAUs and ad revenue, and get a hold on the market. Which is why I said I don't necessarily agree with that they're doing. BUT, you can see how the argument has its merits.

Yes, this makes it hard for another social network to gain usage share in that market. Duh. It would be hard if you were a startup from SoMa, and it would be equally hard (but much more soul-crushing) if you were a startup from the same region and can't get what Facebook does from the local wireless carriers.

What do customers in such markets want? The bottom 90% of customers in such a market will almost certainly want Facebook and Wikipedia for free.

3) As for congestion: I just wanted to pose the Spotify Premium vs Maps question to you. No wireless company ever mentioned "reducing congestion" as the reason for their zero-rating policies (it doesn't make sense anyway), so the subject of congestion is out of place here, and your questions about congestion are completely irrelevant here. That part of my response was very poorly worded now that I read it.

  paid traffic being prioritized over free traffic is essentially reinforcing the internet slow-lane.

Not quite. The important difference is that it's paid for by the consumer, not by the content provider. Even today, those who pay more for a better internet package get their traffic prioritized over those who pay less and everyone's fine with this. See, for example, Google Fiber's slower free tier in Kansas City.

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