Basics
March 24, 2016 3:59 AM Subscribe
Wikimedia and Facebook have given Angolans free access to their websites, but not to the rest of the internet. So, naturally, Angolans have started hiding pirated movies and music in Wikipedia articles and linking to them on closed Facebook groups, creating a totally free and clandestine file sharing network in a country where mobile internet data is extremely expensive.Vice
Zero-Rating: A Modest Proposal by Steve Song:
Democratising access to data through free low-bitrate access would create a true on-ramp to the Internet and its vast diversity of services and interactions.posted by metaquarry at 4:30 AM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." --John Gilmore
"Life, uh, finds a way." --Dr. Ian Malcolm
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [30 favorites]
"Life, uh, finds a way." --Dr. Ian Malcolm
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [30 favorites]
Metaquarry: That article seems to make arithmetic mistakes that result in underestimating the cost of the proposal by two orders of magnitude.
posted by 256 at 5:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by 256 at 5:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
The "Free Basic" or "Wikipedia Zero" proposals - and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are made with the best intentions - has really creepy overtones to me. I'd prefer those orgs just sponsor internet access on its own.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 5:08 AM on March 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 5:08 AM on March 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
256: indeed, although it looks like one of those cases where two orders of magnitude amounts to... probably little practical difference. Here's my recalculation:
4.8kbps * 35 million adult South Africans completely saturating the free service = 168 gbps
168 gbps / 22 tbps = 0.168 tbps / 22 tbps = 0.0076, or 0.76 percent of South Africa's projected undersea cable bandwidth.
So yeah, two orders of magnitude off from "less than 0.01%", but still modest. Of course, one would hope and expect that a lot of traffic would stay on the continent, as the point presumably is not just to make Africa consume more non-African media.
posted by metaquarry at 5:23 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
4.8kbps * 35 million adult South Africans completely saturating the free service = 168 gbps
168 gbps / 22 tbps = 0.168 tbps / 22 tbps = 0.0076, or 0.76 percent of South Africa's projected undersea cable bandwidth.
So yeah, two orders of magnitude off from "less than 0.01%", but still modest. Of course, one would hope and expect that a lot of traffic would stay on the continent, as the point presumably is not just to make Africa consume more non-African media.
posted by metaquarry at 5:23 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think there is a pretty big difference though. Using 1% of the total telecommunications capacity of a country is not trivial. Still probably worth it, but a lot harder to justify than if it were 0.01%.
posted by 256 at 5:28 AM on March 24, 2016
posted by 256 at 5:28 AM on March 24, 2016
I'd prefer those orgs just sponsor internet access on its own.
Which is kinda how Google works - not so much at the infrastructure level, although it clearly wants to and has irons in that fire, but through the idea that it benefits when people use the Internet and suffers when that access is mediated by anyone else. You can find creepy aspects to the free tools it provides - Chrome, Android, the search engine, the online services suite - but in general it doesn't exclude or limit things you might want to do.
The use of Wikipedia and Facebook to store. manage, find and distribute content outside the stated functional purpose of those things is illustrative, I think, of the basic nature of the Internet and that gives me great hope for the future. It parallels the fundamental rule of general purpose computing - once you give someone a computing device they can program, you can't limit what they do with it. You can't build a computer that only runs 'good' software, whatever you define as 'good': the computer only knows that it is storing and operating on data.
The Internet, to be useful to anyone, only knows that it has established a connection between two points and is passing data between them. Anything above that is a matter of interpretation, and it's people, not the Internet, that interpret censorship as damage and route around it. If you provide basic tools for storing, finding and distributing data on a routable network, then people will use those tools in the way they want to. Trying to stop them is to engage in a one-against-many arms race that you will not win without barely-sustainable resource expenditure: China, for example, depends hugely on large numbers of people to monitor the Internet and shut things down, and at some point that'll do to its economy what the cold war arms race did to the Soviets. (Or you become North Korea, here's hoping not.)
posted by Devonian at 5:39 AM on March 24, 2016 [13 favorites]
Which is kinda how Google works - not so much at the infrastructure level, although it clearly wants to and has irons in that fire, but through the idea that it benefits when people use the Internet and suffers when that access is mediated by anyone else. You can find creepy aspects to the free tools it provides - Chrome, Android, the search engine, the online services suite - but in general it doesn't exclude or limit things you might want to do.
The use of Wikipedia and Facebook to store. manage, find and distribute content outside the stated functional purpose of those things is illustrative, I think, of the basic nature of the Internet and that gives me great hope for the future. It parallels the fundamental rule of general purpose computing - once you give someone a computing device they can program, you can't limit what they do with it. You can't build a computer that only runs 'good' software, whatever you define as 'good': the computer only knows that it is storing and operating on data.
The Internet, to be useful to anyone, only knows that it has established a connection between two points and is passing data between them. Anything above that is a matter of interpretation, and it's people, not the Internet, that interpret censorship as damage and route around it. If you provide basic tools for storing, finding and distributing data on a routable network, then people will use those tools in the way they want to. Trying to stop them is to engage in a one-against-many arms race that you will not win without barely-sustainable resource expenditure: China, for example, depends hugely on large numbers of people to monitor the Internet and shut things down, and at some point that'll do to its economy what the cold war arms race did to the Soviets. (Or you become North Korea, here's hoping not.)
posted by Devonian at 5:39 AM on March 24, 2016 [13 favorites]
We need a Tor plugable transport that using encrypted XMPP message over Facebook. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 5:42 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 5:42 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wikipedia Zero does sound like a new 007 flick...
posted by mannequito at 6:05 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by mannequito at 6:05 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Angolans are hiding large files in Wikipedia articles on the Portuguese Wikipedia site (Angola is a former Portuguese colony)—sometimes concealing movies in JPEG or PDF files.
Can someone explain in general terms how this works? I'm generally conversant with computers but I'm curious how one achieves this.
posted by andrewesque at 6:12 AM on March 24, 2016
Can someone explain in general terms how this works? I'm generally conversant with computers but I'm curious how one achieves this.
posted by andrewesque at 6:12 AM on March 24, 2016
Can someone explain in general terms how this works?
You have a popular file (perhaps a translated version of Zootopia) that you want to give to your friends. On your website it's very expensive to download due to metering on the ISP. But there's an arrangement that wikipeida is free. So hide the file somewhere in an obscure article named something innocuous but boring. How do your friends find it? A private facebook page, also free. win win until caught ;-}
( I think, have not reviewed in detail)
posted by sammyo at 6:25 AM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
You have a popular file (perhaps a translated version of Zootopia) that you want to give to your friends. On your website it's very expensive to download due to metering on the ISP. But there's an arrangement that wikipeida is free. So hide the file somewhere in an obscure article named something innocuous but boring. How do your friends find it? A private facebook page, also free. win win until caught ;-}
( I think, have not reviewed in detail)
posted by sammyo at 6:25 AM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
I thought wikimedia was already well known for pirated content and porn, and that had coverage on the blue (first comment there matches here, hah.)
posted by k5.user at 6:42 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by k5.user at 6:42 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." --John Gilmore
"Life, uh, finds a way." --Dr. Ian Malcolm
"The street finds its own uses for things."
posted by Artw at 6:44 AM on March 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
"Life, uh, finds a way." --Dr. Ian Malcolm
"The street finds its own uses for things."
posted by Artw at 6:44 AM on March 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
Some file formats, I believe JPEG among them, have footers that can contain arbitrary data. Mostly this is used for storing tags, thumbnails, other types of metadata...but, you CAN put anything there, so they do.
posted by LogicalDash at 6:49 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LogicalDash at 6:49 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
andrewesque: it doesn't even need to be as complicated as full steganography – the simplest form of renaming a file with a different extension still works in places where it really shouldn't, but there are two other common approaches. Some take advantage of the fact that decoders for popular formats might ignore extra data at the end of a file so you could simply append arbitrary bytes at the end of an otherwise normal file and the recipient simply removes everything up to that point.
The more advanced approach relies on the fact that many “simple” file formats are actually what's referred to as a container format where the format has a way where you can store multiple blocks of data which might not be defined in the standard. For example, a .mp4 file is really a container which can have multiple “streams” – you'd commonly expect those to include audio and video but it could also include things like subtitles, a poster image, etc. and the actual codec might vary, which is how you can find files with e.g. standard H.264 video using an MP-3 audio stream instead of the more standard AAC stream due to some whim of whoever created the file.
That means that you could upload a video file which plays normally but has a bunch of images which might not be used by most players. Similarly, PDF allows arbitrary data to be embedded which is officially used so e.g. you could include a video stream, 3D model, etc. in a document but could also be used to stash arbitrary data of your choice. Finally, JPEG allows things like an EXIF thumbnail and you could abuse that by creating an image where the actual image payload is 1% of the total data in the file and a fair percentage of people would never notice because decoding the actual image stream still orks.
posted by adamsc at 6:52 AM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
The more advanced approach relies on the fact that many “simple” file formats are actually what's referred to as a container format where the format has a way where you can store multiple blocks of data which might not be defined in the standard. For example, a .mp4 file is really a container which can have multiple “streams” – you'd commonly expect those to include audio and video but it could also include things like subtitles, a poster image, etc. and the actual codec might vary, which is how you can find files with e.g. standard H.264 video using an MP-3 audio stream instead of the more standard AAC stream due to some whim of whoever created the file.
That means that you could upload a video file which plays normally but has a bunch of images which might not be used by most players. Similarly, PDF allows arbitrary data to be embedded which is officially used so e.g. you could include a video stream, 3D model, etc. in a document but could also be used to stash arbitrary data of your choice. Finally, JPEG allows things like an EXIF thumbnail and you could abuse that by creating an image where the actual image payload is 1% of the total data in the file and a fair percentage of people would never notice because decoding the actual image stream still orks.
posted by adamsc at 6:52 AM on March 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
If anyone gives free space on the internet, it is going to be used like this - when GMail appeared, there were people trying to figure out ways to use it as a public file host. Trying to control what people do with the resources they have is a true uphill travel on both ways, unless those in charge are willing to sabotage their own mission.
While Wikipedia editors in Portugual can simply go to another website to download or share pirated files
Worth pointing out that last year, for the first time quite some domains were blocked from national DNS servers. It seemed a powerful move, until people noticed you could use Google DNS servers and it's not like most of those sites don't have alternate domains or proxies to bypass those limitations. I'm still unsure if the measure was not to prevent anyone from downloading a movie or streaming a football game, but to make the entry level harder, because at a time they seemed to really believe they were stopping copyright infringement.
Wikipedia’s old guard, however, are concerned with this development.
*breathes and holds off from going on a rant about the "old guard" that was in part responsible for quitting WP*
posted by lmfsilva at 6:57 AM on March 24, 2016
While Wikipedia editors in Portugual can simply go to another website to download or share pirated files
Worth pointing out that last year, for the first time quite some domains were blocked from national DNS servers. It seemed a powerful move, until people noticed you could use Google DNS servers and it's not like most of those sites don't have alternate domains or proxies to bypass those limitations. I'm still unsure if the measure was not to prevent anyone from downloading a movie or streaming a football game, but to make the entry level harder, because at a time they seemed to really believe they were stopping copyright infringement.
Wikipedia’s old guard, however, are concerned with this development.
*breathes and holds off from going on a rant about the "old guard" that was in part responsible for quitting WP*
posted by lmfsilva at 6:57 AM on March 24, 2016
Seems it would not be that difficult to flag any upload over a certain file size to be subject to extra scrutiny. Allow the upload, but don't allow the file to be live until it's been checked.
Minimum size would need to be somewhat large (~5 mb or so maybe?) to avoid blocking upload of high quality images by default. This would allow someone to upload music files, but not movies.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:07 AM on March 24, 2016
Minimum size would need to be somewhat large (~5 mb or so maybe?) to avoid blocking upload of high quality images by default. This would allow someone to upload music files, but not movies.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:07 AM on March 24, 2016
when GMail appeared, there were people trying to figure out ways to use it as a public file host
Google reacted to that by introducing Google Drive. I think that was the correct reaction.
posted by flabdablet at 7:25 AM on March 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
Google reacted to that by introducing Google Drive. I think that was the correct reaction.
posted by flabdablet at 7:25 AM on March 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
I don't understand the argument against offering some of the internet for free. What does it even mean that free Wikipedia creates a "tiered" internet? How is free wikipedia worse than free nothing? What's the fear? There's no way to think that people in the developing world will just say, "Facebook is enough for me" unless you believe that they are somehow dumber than those of us that already have internet.
I guess in a future where most commercial sites are zero rated and the rest were prohibitively expensive, then I would agree, but I don't see why it would head in that direction. Subsidizing use of some sites early on should help lower the cost to deliver data by paying for the infrastructure.
Were people this upset about 800 numbers or being able to call in to find out the time? Did we end up with a tiered telephony system that hurt us?
posted by snofoam at 7:36 AM on March 24, 2016
I guess in a future where most commercial sites are zero rated and the rest were prohibitively expensive, then I would agree, but I don't see why it would head in that direction. Subsidizing use of some sites early on should help lower the cost to deliver data by paying for the infrastructure.
Were people this upset about 800 numbers or being able to call in to find out the time? Did we end up with a tiered telephony system that hurt us?
posted by snofoam at 7:36 AM on March 24, 2016
There's no way to think that people in the developing world will just say, "Facebook is enough for me" unless you believe that they are somehow dumber than those of us that already have internet.
My parents literally will not go to a new restaurant that doesn't have a Facebook page. Yes, even if it has a website.
My ten-year-old was told by a classmate that Wikipedia wasn't a good site for research, so he just gave up on a research project (fortunately, he only lost about an hour of time, sitting at the computer trying to figure out how he could look things up without Wikipedia, before we corrected and expanded his focus). This is a kid who has grown up on computers.
2.1 million people still use AOL.
"those of us that already have internet" is a large number of people. Not all of them are as computer-savvy as you are.
posted by Etrigan at 7:54 AM on March 24, 2016 [10 favorites]
My parents literally will not go to a new restaurant that doesn't have a Facebook page. Yes, even if it has a website.
My ten-year-old was told by a classmate that Wikipedia wasn't a good site for research, so he just gave up on a research project (fortunately, he only lost about an hour of time, sitting at the computer trying to figure out how he could look things up without Wikipedia, before we corrected and expanded his focus). This is a kid who has grown up on computers.
2.1 million people still use AOL.
"those of us that already have internet" is a large number of people. Not all of them are as computer-savvy as you are.
posted by Etrigan at 7:54 AM on March 24, 2016 [10 favorites]
adamsc: The more advanced approach relies on the fact that many “simple” file formats are actually what's referred to as a container format where the format has a way where you can store multiple blocks of data which might not be defined in the standard.
Well put. A 5 minute song may be represented as 5 MB of audio data, but then someone adds in 100 MB of other stuff (true case - I've seen this and have been unable to figure out what was added in the legitimate music files, both MP3 and FLAC). And I've seen a 1 MB image hidden in a Microsoft Word .docx and Excel file (which you can parse more easily by renaming to .zip, like .xlsx and .pptx files, and amusingly, this has confused IE8, but I digress).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:14 AM on March 24, 2016
Well put. A 5 minute song may be represented as 5 MB of audio data, but then someone adds in 100 MB of other stuff (true case - I've seen this and have been unable to figure out what was added in the legitimate music files, both MP3 and FLAC). And I've seen a 1 MB image hidden in a Microsoft Word .docx and Excel file (which you can parse more easily by renaming to .zip, like .xlsx and .pptx files, and amusingly, this has confused IE8, but I digress).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:14 AM on March 24, 2016
Google reacted to that by introducing Google Drive. I think that was the correct reaction.
Drive appeared in 2012, and those attempts to use GMail as a rudimentary file locker happened still during the invitation-era. I think Drive was just a logical expansion of Google Docs rolled out for the (IIRC) second generation Chromebooks and the growing Android market, not exactly a reaction to people using their inbox to store files.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:21 AM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Drive appeared in 2012, and those attempts to use GMail as a rudimentary file locker happened still during the invitation-era. I think Drive was just a logical expansion of Google Docs rolled out for the (IIRC) second generation Chromebooks and the growing Android market, not exactly a reaction to people using their inbox to store files.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:21 AM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
That steganography link is absolutely fascinating, not just for the clever ways of hiding things in jpegs, but also for the other cool things going back centuries. We have always been standing on the shoulders of giants.
posted by marienbad at 8:50 AM on March 24, 2016
posted by marienbad at 8:50 AM on March 24, 2016
"those of us that already have internet" is a large number of people. Not all of them are as computer-savvy as you are.
Fair enough, but it is unclear how this relates to the argument against offering parts of the internet for free. No one uses the entire internet, and some people only use the dumbest parts, even when thy have access to all of it, but that doesn't show that having accesss to part of it would be worse than having nothing. Or that having free access to some parts would limit overall demand for the rest.
posted by snofoam at 9:32 AM on March 24, 2016
Fair enough, but it is unclear how this relates to the argument against offering parts of the internet for free. No one uses the entire internet, and some people only use the dumbest parts, even when thy have access to all of it, but that doesn't show that having accesss to part of it would be worse than having nothing. Or that having free access to some parts would limit overall demand for the rest.
posted by snofoam at 9:32 AM on March 24, 2016
that doesn't show that having accesss to part of it would be worse than having nothing.
The argument is that it doesn't have to be this binary choice. FB and Wiki are presenting this as a gift to the underprivileged, without also admitting that they're getting a benefit out of it (more so FB). Also, the effect may well be that prices for data access never come down, because people who can already afford it will have it, and people who can't quite afford it will have FB and Wiki, so what incentive is there for data providers to lower the price?
posted by Etrigan at 9:36 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
The argument is that it doesn't have to be this binary choice. FB and Wiki are presenting this as a gift to the underprivileged, without also admitting that they're getting a benefit out of it (more so FB). Also, the effect may well be that prices for data access never come down, because people who can already afford it will have it, and people who can't quite afford it will have FB and Wiki, so what incentive is there for data providers to lower the price?
posted by Etrigan at 9:36 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
No one uses the entire internet, and some people only use the dumbest parts, even when thy have access to all of it, but that doesn't show that having accesss to part of it would be worse than having nothing. Or that having free access to some parts would limit overall demand for the rest.
It's net neutrality 101 this. Your argument is the same as "how is having free YouTube worse than having free nothing?" and the answer is the same: because it prevents the next YouTube from occurring, and starts to destroy the equality that made the web in particular what it is today.
That open web is under threat enough from Facebook when it has to compete in a net neutral world, god knows what it would be like in a closed and metered one.
posted by bonaldi at 9:38 AM on March 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
It's net neutrality 101 this. Your argument is the same as "how is having free YouTube worse than having free nothing?" and the answer is the same: because it prevents the next YouTube from occurring, and starts to destroy the equality that made the web in particular what it is today.
That open web is under threat enough from Facebook when it has to compete in a net neutral world, god knows what it would be like in a closed and metered one.
posted by bonaldi at 9:38 AM on March 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
effect may well be
because it prevents the next
So there are arguments, but they are hypothetical. Without any data, it seems equally likely to believe that access to free Wikipedia might accelerate a drop in data prices towards something average people can afford.
I understand why the open net is way better than something that is limited or selectively throttled by an ISP, but I don't really see how a limited internet is worse than no internet. As mentioned above, companies are subsidizing free partial internet out of self-interest, so the option here isn't partial free versus total free, it's partial free versus nothing.
posted by snofoam at 9:52 AM on March 24, 2016
because it prevents the next
So there are arguments, but they are hypothetical. Without any data, it seems equally likely to believe that access to free Wikipedia might accelerate a drop in data prices towards something average people can afford.
I understand why the open net is way better than something that is limited or selectively throttled by an ISP, but I don't really see how a limited internet is worse than no internet. As mentioned above, companies are subsidizing free partial internet out of self-interest, so the option here isn't partial free versus total free, it's partial free versus nothing.
posted by snofoam at 9:52 AM on March 24, 2016
The Internet came about and grew in an atmosphere of Net Neutrality. Altering that scheme has been pushed hard solely by people who make money off the Internet. That tells me that the odds are pretty good that it will benefit them more than the rest of us.
posted by Etrigan at 10:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 10:00 AM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
The Internet came about and grew in an atmosphere of Net Neutrality.
In the US, large numbers of people got online via services like AOL and CompuServe before eventually getting access to the open internet. Luckily, we survived. Anyhow, if the only downside at the moment are vague possible future evils, I think I'm still in the camp of "it's better than nothing."
posted by snofoam at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
In the US, large numbers of people got online via services like AOL and CompuServe before eventually getting access to the open internet. Luckily, we survived. Anyhow, if the only downside at the moment are vague possible future evils, I think I'm still in the camp of "it's better than nothing."
posted by snofoam at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
1) The cost of providing TCP/IP access at all is the single largest cost in the entire process. It's provisioning radios, power, and bandwidth. At that point, the $/bit is incredibly low and falling.
2) Internet.org's business model is that local telecom's zero rate the service because it is a loss leader and will eventually result in greater customer retention/increase revenue per customer.
3) something like 30% of all bandwidth is advertisement. Source
How is internet.org nothing more than a marketing stunt for facebook et. al?
posted by Freen at 10:15 AM on March 24, 2016
2) Internet.org's business model is that local telecom's zero rate the service because it is a loss leader and will eventually result in greater customer retention/increase revenue per customer.
3) something like 30% of all bandwidth is advertisement. Source
How is internet.org nothing more than a marketing stunt for facebook et. al?
posted by Freen at 10:15 AM on March 24, 2016
Without any data, it seems equally likely to believe that access to free Wikipedia might accelerate a drop in data prices towards something average people can afford.
Except "we subsidised a limited version of this expensive thing and people liked it so we made the expensive thing cheaper" has never happened anywhere ever, and "we hated this free competition so we used our cash reserves to buy up the market" is what always happens.
This isn't academic hypothetical stuff, it's happening in front of your dismissive eyes. The gravitational pull of Facebook is eating the online world; allowing them to use their cash to rig the game so that they are the only free option just accelerates that process. Saying "oh but but free wikipedia" is almost wilful point-missing.
posted by bonaldi at 10:16 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Except "we subsidised a limited version of this expensive thing and people liked it so we made the expensive thing cheaper" has never happened anywhere ever, and "we hated this free competition so we used our cash reserves to buy up the market" is what always happens.
This isn't academic hypothetical stuff, it's happening in front of your dismissive eyes. The gravitational pull of Facebook is eating the online world; allowing them to use their cash to rig the game so that they are the only free option just accelerates that process. Saying "oh but but free wikipedia" is almost wilful point-missing.
posted by bonaldi at 10:16 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think that almost every new technology was subsidized in some way during the early stages until scale drove down costs. Sometimes it is government or military, other times it is big businesses that could afford to pay a ton for cell service or jet travel. This doesn't seem that different to me, except the company footing the bill isn't also the end user in this case.
posted by snofoam at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2016
posted by snofoam at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2016
Also, I don't like the fact that Facebook and Google are/own such huge parts of the internet, but they won't be that way forever. More than anything else they do, they are reducing what people are willing to pay for advertising and setting the stage for their own demise.
posted by snofoam at 10:35 AM on March 24, 2016
posted by snofoam at 10:35 AM on March 24, 2016
This doesn't seem that different to me, except the company footing the bill isn't also the end user in this case.
The difference is that this isn't at all similar to subsidising a technology cost in the sense you're describing; this is much, much more akin to the standard monopoly-building practice of using cash to distort the market. It's much closer to Starbucks offering free coffees next to the local Angolan coffee shops until they go bust.
setting the stage for their own demise.
Now who's talking in hypotheticals? If a vague "maybe the obvious and natural conclusion of this effort won't come to pass because Google and Facebook will go broke" is all your camp has, I'll stay in mine.
posted by bonaldi at 10:40 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
The difference is that this isn't at all similar to subsidising a technology cost in the sense you're describing; this is much, much more akin to the standard monopoly-building practice of using cash to distort the market. It's much closer to Starbucks offering free coffees next to the local Angolan coffee shops until they go bust.
setting the stage for their own demise.
Now who's talking in hypotheticals? If a vague "maybe the obvious and natural conclusion of this effort won't come to pass because Google and Facebook will go broke" is all your camp has, I'll stay in mine.
posted by bonaldi at 10:40 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Now who's talking in hypotheticals? If a vague "maybe the obvious and natural conclusion of this effort won't come to pass because Google and Facebook will go broke" is all your camp has, I'll stay in mine.
My prediction that Google and Facebook will be boots stamping on our face only temporarily is neither here nor there in this discussion. If you want to know what "my camp" has versus your hypotheticals, it is access to Wikipedia, the ability to share files and Facebook cover photos featuring Nicky Minaj's butt. All real things, right now.
posted by snofoam at 10:53 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
My prediction that Google and Facebook will be boots stamping on our face only temporarily is neither here nor there in this discussion. If you want to know what "my camp" has versus your hypotheticals, it is access to Wikipedia, the ability to share files and Facebook cover photos featuring Nicky Minaj's butt. All real things, right now.
posted by snofoam at 10:53 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think that almost every new technology was subsidized in some way during the early stages until scale drove down costs.
Thank goodness someone is propping up the scrappy little Facebook and Wikimedia.
posted by Etrigan at 10:53 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Thank goodness someone is propping up the scrappy little Facebook and Wikimedia.
posted by Etrigan at 10:53 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Thank goodness someone is propping up the scrappy little Facebook and Wikimedia
The technology being subsidized in this example is build out of wireless data service.
posted by snofoam at 11:02 AM on March 24, 2016
The technology being subsidized in this example is build out of wireless data service.
posted by snofoam at 11:02 AM on March 24, 2016
The technology being subsidized in this example is build out of wireless data service.
Unitel S.A. is a private Angolan mobile phone company which was established on 8 March 2001 as a joint-stock company. The company is owned by Portugal Telecom (through Africatel), Angolan state-owned oil company Sonangol and local firms like Geni holding, owned by Isabel dos Santos and her father José Eduardo dos Santos, the Angolan President and Vidatel, each holding 25% of Unitel.posted by Etrigan at 11:27 AM on March 24, 2016
...
Dos Santos is listed by the portal as the richest president on the continent with an estimated net worth exceeding $20 billion.
Not sure what you guys are trying to get at. I was using subsidize to mean "support financially." Facebook, or whoever wants to do it, is financially supporting wireless data service by paying for zero rate access to certain sites. They are creating demand and paying money into the telcos that build out the infrastructure. Sure, Facebook benefits or plans to benefit from it, but they're clearly not being subsidized in this arrangement by any reasonable definition of the word subsidy. Sure, lots of telcos are evil monopolies, but that has nothing to do with zero rate access.
I still have Wikipedia and Nicky Minaj and y'all still got nothing but ominous hypotheticals.
posted by snofoam at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2016
I still have Wikipedia and Nicky Minaj and y'all still got nothing but ominous hypotheticals.
posted by snofoam at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2016
Piracy, umm, finds a way.
posted by Green Winnebago at 12:31 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Green Winnebago at 12:31 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's no way to think that people in the developing world will just say, "Facebook is enough for me" unless you believe that they are somehow dumber than those of us that already have internet.
Imma gonna tell y'all about the development aid industry and their attitudes to "poor Africans" and the fact that all that racism y'all are seeing at home can only be magnified when transported to the entire continent that even CNN thinks is a country.
I'm tired of being tactful.
I'm not alone.
posted by infini at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Imma gonna tell y'all about the development aid industry and their attitudes to "poor Africans" and the fact that all that racism y'all are seeing at home can only be magnified when transported to the entire continent that even CNN thinks is a country.
I'm tired of being tactful.
I'm not alone.
posted by infini at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Case in point, India's rebellion and Mark's surprise at them not being grateful for his freebie. Like wtf liberators from the free world, come to save us from our misery...
posted by infini at 2:47 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:47 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Which is weird, because according to snofoam these folks should be welcoming the free internet subsidised by American corps with open arms
posted by bonaldi at 2:59 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bonaldi at 2:59 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
In the US, large numbers of people got online via services like AOL and CompuServe before eventually getting access to the open internet. Luckily, we survived. Anyhow, if the only downside at the moment are vague possible future evils, I think I'm still in the camp of "it's better than nothing."
I think I agree that "it's better than nothing." But AOL and Compuserve weren't merely something people used before getting access to the Internet. They were online services long before the public had Internet access. They were walled gardens, worlds of their own. Even after the Internet became available to the public, it took time for those services to open themselves up and allow even email exchange. And once the Internet, with its net neutral philosophy, became commonplace, the walled garden shriveled and died or continue to exist as a shadow of their former glory.
So it wasn't really a matter of "Luckily we survived." It was more like we outgrew them.
posted by lhauser at 3:50 PM on March 24, 2016
I think I agree that "it's better than nothing." But AOL and Compuserve weren't merely something people used before getting access to the Internet. They were online services long before the public had Internet access. They were walled gardens, worlds of their own. Even after the Internet became available to the public, it took time for those services to open themselves up and allow even email exchange. And once the Internet, with its net neutral philosophy, became commonplace, the walled garden shriveled and died or continue to exist as a shadow of their former glory.
So it wasn't really a matter of "Luckily we survived." It was more like we outgrew them.
posted by lhauser at 3:50 PM on March 24, 2016
I noticed, a while back, a lot of audio files on Google Earth, as if school kids had hidden songs there to listen to in class while doing research. (I guess.)
posted by Oyéah at 3:58 PM on March 24, 2016
posted by Oyéah at 3:58 PM on March 24, 2016
Which is weird, because according to snofoam these folks should be welcoming the free internet subsidised by American corps with open arms
I heard the war was going to be very short and that the grateful populace would never insurrect
posted by infini at 4:14 PM on March 24, 2016
I heard the war was going to be very short and that the grateful populace would never insurrect
posted by infini at 4:14 PM on March 24, 2016
none of this is new technology
If we are being absolutely literal, then yes, the technology already exists, but it is new technology in the sense that it is still being rolled out in that area. In my mind, this is similar to lots of other technologies that were implemented in a time/place where the cost of service was prohibitively high for many/most people. If you don't see the similarity, so be it.
according to snofoam these folks should be welcoming the free internet subsidised by American corps with open arms
I never told the people of Angola or India what they should or should not want. In my opinion, positioning mostly-Facebook free internet as a form of philanthropy is disingenuous and patronizing, but having the free access does not necessarily seem problematic. Free wikipedia may essentially be philanthropic, I don't see how they are profiting from it. But either way, I think it's great that people in those countries are deciding whether and how to use these things. The idea of Zuckerberg telling people they should be happy is patronizing in an icky, neo-colonial way. The idea that we should be protecting them from being duped into a tiered internet is patronizing in the exact same way.
posted by snofoam at 4:36 PM on March 24, 2016
If we are being absolutely literal, then yes, the technology already exists, but it is new technology in the sense that it is still being rolled out in that area. In my mind, this is similar to lots of other technologies that were implemented in a time/place where the cost of service was prohibitively high for many/most people. If you don't see the similarity, so be it.
according to snofoam these folks should be welcoming the free internet subsidised by American corps with open arms
I never told the people of Angola or India what they should or should not want. In my opinion, positioning mostly-Facebook free internet as a form of philanthropy is disingenuous and patronizing, but having the free access does not necessarily seem problematic. Free wikipedia may essentially be philanthropic, I don't see how they are profiting from it. But either way, I think it's great that people in those countries are deciding whether and how to use these things. The idea of Zuckerberg telling people they should be happy is patronizing in an icky, neo-colonial way. The idea that we should be protecting them from being duped into a tiered internet is patronizing in the exact same way.
posted by snofoam at 4:36 PM on March 24, 2016
I never told the people of Angola or India what they should or should not want.
No, no, you just said how awesome free stuff was, and how it was always better than not having free stuff and you couldn't see anything wrong with the free stuff anyway — dismissing all their own objections — aside from "hypotheticals" you waved away.
Nobody is saying they should be "protected"; from what I can see they're being applauded for subverting the colonisation attempt to their own ends.
posted by bonaldi at 3:27 AM on March 29, 2016
No, no, you just said how awesome free stuff was, and how it was always better than not having free stuff and you couldn't see anything wrong with the free stuff anyway — dismissing all their own objections — aside from "hypotheticals" you waved away.
Nobody is saying they should be "protected"; from what I can see they're being applauded for subverting the colonisation attempt to their own ends.
posted by bonaldi at 3:27 AM on March 29, 2016
Turkey Wants Ban on Mocking Its Leader Enforced Abroad Too
posted by jeffburdges at 7:20 AM on March 31, 2016
posted by jeffburdges at 7:20 AM on March 31, 2016
i don't think wikipedia is equivalent to facebook. When Metafilter lost lots of google traffic, there were lots of articles about how nowadays nearly all traffic to sites goes through facebook, google, or a smaller share through twitter and lots of mobile sites. People don't look up a site any more and stay on it. I used to look up seat61.com (covers every rail journey anywhere in the world) and wikipedia and stay there hours, and here, now i don't, i realised it's true. Wikipedia is one of the last websites that doesn't rely on google and facebook 'the content gateways', it's about the last true independent, along with porn sites and the bbc.
posted by maiamaia at 3:36 PM on March 31, 2016
posted by maiamaia at 3:36 PM on March 31, 2016
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posted by Beverley Westwood at 4:24 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]