'Wikipedia Zero' is a zero-rating [1] scheme where many ISPs and network operators offered data access to certain Wikimedia sites (or just Wikipedia) at no metered-data cost to the line's subscriber.<p>Zero-rating's relationship with the broader subject of net neutrality has been hotly debated, and some legislation considers it a violation of net neutrality, while others don't. Nonetheless, fierce backlash against Facebook's zero-rating scheme in India was contrasted with Wikipedia's zero-rating which was broadly popular, exposing a dilemma.<p>By Wikimedia discontinuing this scheme, the situation moves towards resolution: no longer does it need to be debated whether Wikipedia's zero-rating is a net good, but Facebook's, although ostensibly also for public benefit, is something to be avoided.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating</a>
I was involved in one of the non-FB companies who pushed for this weirdo program.<p>If I were to guess the stats: I would guess FB got 99% of the traffic, even though wikipedia was the key thing of the marketing message, at least in the west.<p>The basic FB setup was to target key people in african and south-east asian operators and after a while of the usual kind of negotiation say: if you'll set us up with this zero-rating program in your company, we'll get you a cushy FB job + visa to the US.<p>It was an open joke in the business at the time. People in every part of the industry (including myself!) were scrambling to get an FB job offer. These were the kind of things we were discussing after drinks when meeting with mobile operator customers.<p>It got to the point where operators were restricting the people who were allowed to meet with FB.<p>I am not joking. I witnessed (on FB!) several people from these mobile operators who I had previously worked with later move to California for FB jobs.<p>Yes, I am aware that this is likely illegal under US law. No, I don't have proof.
One thing not mentioned in the article, is the problems with piracy - <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nz7eyg/wikipedia-zero-facebook-free-basics-angola-pirates-zero-rating" rel="nofollow">https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nz7eyg/wikipedia-...</a><p>If you give people an artificially restricted free resource, they'll find a way to break out. If only there were a popular aphorism to explain this...
What it is:<p>> Wikipedia Zero was created in 2012 to address one barrier to participating in Wikipedia globally: high mobile data costs. Through the program, we partnered with mobile operators to waive mobile data fees for their customers to freely access Wikipedia on mobile devices.
While it's heartening to see the Wikimedia Foundation abandon its opposition to net neutrality, it would be more heartening if this was accompanied by explicit stance of <i>support</i> for net neutrality.<p>Wikipedia, by contrast with the WMF, has always had strong support for net neutrality. WMF's opposition to net neutrality was a strong indicator of its lack of accountability to the community it ostensibly serves.
On the consumption side of wikipedia there are other options for getting it into bandwidth poor areas.<p>for example there is endless OS (<a href="https://endlessos.com/" rel="nofollow">https://endlessos.com/</a>) which is essentially an offline linux distro aimed at school kids preloaded with a snapshot of wikipedia, khan academy, etc.