Ask HN: What do you guys think of zero rating?

78 点作者 throwaway43大约 10 年前

The Indian mobile operator Airtel has proposed a new scheme called Airtel Zero here in India , which is supposedly an "open" platform that would allow any app maker to pay for the data so that customers can use the app without paying any data charges.This is ofcourse , a blatant violation of net neutrality and has caused an uproar here in India . However they're trying to make this into a Rich vs poor thing by saying that banning zero rating is to deny poor people access.The worse thing is that both Google and Facebook are in support of this scheme even though they support net neutrality in the US. Facebook was already in violation with their Internet.org scheme but I didn't expect this from Google.If Airtel's experiment succeeds I think that this could be replicated across the world and destroy the very character of the internet.The other problem is that zero rating is a bit of a trickier debate since it's not the customer who's paying.We need to force the tech majors to take a stand against this. What can be done to force them ?

17 条评论

arihant大约 10 年前

Okay, this has nothing to do with supporting the poor as the comments here are suggesting, and as Airtel is trying to paint it. Poor can avail month-long 1GB data at $3 in India. All major providers have a plan that makes Facebook, Whatzapp, Google, Twitter, Instagram free for $0.5 a month. We already have plans for the poor, this is not it.This plan is the following - if you take Airtel Zero, you cannot access any other website. Period. That's right, no option to pay for other websites at all. Once you opt-in, your web is restricted. This is not like the plans for poor we already have, where you pay little or nothing for some websites, but can use regular plans to access rest of the web. With the new Airtel Zero, you waive off the rights to rest of the web as soon as you opt-in.This is a net neutrality debate. We have plans for poor, this is not it.

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danieltillett大约 10 年前

I am not sure why businesses paying the data charges of their customers is a violation of net neutrality? It might be anti-competitive and an abuse of market power, but unless the traffic was prioritized over other traffic how is this a violation of net neutrality?

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wpietri大约 10 年前

I'm always disappointed when deregulation advocates don't seem to understand how markets work.Free markets are great when you have a large number of relatively equal agents interacting freely. E.g., the classic farmer's market, or the stock trading pits of old. But the more you drift from those conditions, the less effective they are.Here, with large, rich players paying for access to poor, mostly-uneducated individuals, it's a situation ripe for abuse. Especially because those individuals won't have access to the regular Internet to help them sort through what they're seeing.I expect a lot of what they get will be from the sort of people who exploit the poor, the online equivalent of payday lenders and debt relief scam artists.

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nathan_f77大约 10 年前

If I was developing an app in India, I would love to pay for my users data. This is a huge win for both companies and customers.My opinion is that this should have nothing to do with the "net neutrality" debate. It's just shifting more costs onto the host, instead of the user. The host already pays for all the servers and outgoing bandwidth, why is it a problem if they also pay for the other side of the connection?And if any website can opt-in to this arrangement, then there is nothing anti-competitive about it at all.

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Gusfoo_2大约 10 年前

> If Airtel's experiment succeeds I think that this could be replicated across the world and destroy the very character of the internet.No - that is unlikely in the extreme. The UK has had zero-rated data and text messages for over 5 years and it has had no impact at all.

jheriko大约 10 年前

> We need to force the tech majors to take a stand against this.Why exactly?The crux of this argument seems to be "having more money makes you better able to compete"This falls out of free market capitalism. Its not going to go away without regulation, and it seems like doing so will disadvantage swathes of poor people for questionable benefits.I do see the argument, but I think its quite far out of touch with reality, as a lot of these 'internet rights' and silicon valley engineers seem to be.

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tempodox大约 10 年前

There is only one solution: If absolutely nobody has to pay for their mobile data usage, then there are no “poor” people in that respect.If “Airtel Zero” were implemented as is, then “poor” people would only see the apps / contents that the people with the money are willing to give them. That degree of dependency borders on modern slavery. I would rather see mobile data made free for everyone.

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blfr大约 10 年前

Wouldn't banning zero rating impact poor people the most?It's probably why this is even an issue in the first place. In richer countries, companies simply expect their customers to have a decent connection.

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denzil_correa大约 10 年前

The telcos and the government are trying to spin this as affordable Internet for the poor. Essentially, it does break net neutrality [0].> At first glance it may appear that all traffic is handled equally in this charging model, but the fact is that once you have used your quota, the traffic that is exempted will be allowed to continue, while all other traffic will be throttled or blocked. This is clearly a case of discrimination between different types of traffic.Now, if this is so altruistic and for benefit of all - I would make three "requests" from the telecoms.1. Telcos should not prevent ANY app/website or any other service from being registered on the zero rating platform.2. Telcos should post every detail of their financial deal with zero rating partners public. Essentially, I would like to know if a zero rating partner is paying for this affordability or are these costs passed on to the consumer in secret.I am sure since this is for the good of everyone, telcos would have no problem agreeing to these two reasonable requests.[0] <a href="http://eng.nkom.no/topical-issues/news/net-neutrality-and-charging-models" rel="nofollow">http://eng.nkom.no/topical-issues/news/net-neutrality-and-ch...</a>

cxon大约 10 年前

The original post<a href="http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel-news/corporate/airtel+launches+-+airtel+zero-+a+win-win+platform+for+customers+and+marketers" rel="nofollow">http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel...</a>and their clarification on the Airtel Zero<a href="http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel-news/corporate/statement-from-airtel" rel="nofollow">http://www.airtel.in/about-bharti/media-centre/bharti-airtel...</a>I feel Zero rating can be a boon or a death knell for small startups based on Airtel decide to charge per GB of data. I don't think it about restricting certain sites, its about giving the option to peoples to be able to access certain services without having to recharge. I am not sure if Airtel have a sinister design behind this at the moment.... Its more of wait and watch, keep your fingers crossed.

vishnuharidas大约 10 年前

There are two points here.1. Zero rating is good for customers. If Flipkart offers zero rating app, then other competitors like Amazon, Ebay, Snapdeal etc. too are forced to improve their service over Flipkart, or provide Zero Rating for them also. (But from a Business perspective, this can be bad).2. Net Neutrality is a different thing. But here the telecom operators are confusing people with NN and ZR, tricking the users to believe that they are going to get internet for free once ZR is active. No, it's not like that. They are different things.I believe that ZR for basic communication apps (like WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Skype etc.) is an essential thing to do.But still maintaining Net Neutrality is very very important.

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ensignavenger大约 10 年前

If the carriers are calling this scheme 'Internet' or using that word (or concept) to market this, then it is fraud. If they are instead calling it 'Airtel Zero' access, then they are fundamentally offering access to a different thing from the Internet, and thus it would not be a 'net' neutrality issue. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck- if not, then it shouldn't be advertised as such :)

Zigurd大约 10 年前

I just switched to a $50 ($40 for the third and subsequent lines) unlimited and supposedly uncapped mobile data plan. As long as such plans area available at reasonable prices, I don't think zero-rating some services on cheaper plans is very evil. As other commenters have pointed out, there are plans that restrict Web access, but that's not "zero rating." That's a walled garden.

lucaspiller大约 10 年前

Does anyone know how Facebook 0 worked? That sounds like it was pretty much the same thing:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/fast-and-free-facebook-mobile-access-with-0facebookcom/391295167130" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/fast-and-free-facebo...</a>

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Kiro大约 10 年前

> by saying that banning zero rating is to deny poor people access.I may be naive but I kind of agree. I also think zero rating sounds great in theory. The alternative is that people cannot access at all? Can you post some arguments of why it is bad? Net neutrality doesn't tell me anything. Why would I as a consumer care about that?

vnaybrdwj大约 10 年前

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zero-rated-data-net-neutrality-violated-period-vinay-bhardwaj" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zero-rated-data-net-neutralit...</a>

thanatropism大约 10 年前

They have or had for a while this for Whatsapp in Brazil. I don't think it spread much. The market sometimes does things even market theory assumes it can't.