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Facebook is wooing internet carriers from all around the world onto its free internet service for developing countries, Internet.org.
The main reason why Facebook is promoting a free internet service for developing countries is precisely the fact that there is great potential for a large use base addition from these environments. Thus, the more people have access to the internet worldwide, the more potential Facebook users there are out there.
Furthermore, Internet.org provides free internet in restricted conditions, as it only offers access to several websites, out of which Facebook is obviously the biggest and best. This is the fact that has caused Internet.org to receive quite a bit of negative publicity, as it violates the principles of net neutrality.
Mark Zuckerberg has proven to be extremely creative at devising ways to work around this net neutrality issue, making it all seem like just a small bump in the road to very many more Facebook users, which translates into a lot of money.
This was actually the angle that he chose to pursue in its quest to convince more and more internet carriers to join in on Internet.org. This free internet is actually meant to get people to experience word wide web and social media especially, so that they are tempted to get actual subscriptions that could open the entire internet to them, not only the preview version. Also, the free trial angle is supposed to accelerate the people’s decision process significantly, so that both Facebook and the internet carrier can make more money faster.
Ultimately, lots of people are going to great lengths to bring the internet to the far side of the world. And since there is quite a lot of money to be made, why shouldn’t Facebook be the beneficiary? And since the media giant is even going to share its success, partnering up with the social network seems like a foolproof plan.
“Internet.org brings new users onto mobile networks on average over 50% faster after launching free basic services, and more than half of the people who come online through Internet.org are paying for data and accessing the internet within the first 30 days.” said an Internet.org blog post.
It remains to be seen just how many carrier companies are actually going to be collaborate with Internet.org, but it seems to be the ideal win-win business, so its bound to be extremely popular.
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