The FCC letter signed by facebook said

1. “The open architecture of the Internet creates an innovation-without-permission ecosystem. Consumers (and consumers alone) decide the winners and losers on the open Internet.”

2. The brief also describes the dangers of a “walled garden” with a “pre-selected lineup.”

3. “Such an outcome would undo much of the progress of the last two decades. Consumers would lose the ability to choose freely among competitive services and sources of information. It would also significantly decrease the rewards edge providers could realize from innovating, further decreasing consumer choice.”

4. It would also significantly decrease the rewards edge providers could realize from innovating, further decreasing consumer choice.”

Free Basics contradict all these .

None of that is against zero-rating. They specifically mention paid prioritization, which means the data is prioritized, while zero-rating is a billing practice.

The fundamental principle makes this clear: Is the ISP providing competitive advantage to some apps/services/websites, either through pricing or QoS? Zero-rating does violate this.

But that's not the fundamental principle they advocate for.

The letter mentions "to discriminate both technically and financially against Internet companies and to impose new tolls on them."

No technical limitations are placed on internet companies with free basics, they just cost more to the consumer. And as the company isn't charged more to be on free basics, there isn't financial discrimination against the company.

Strictly speaking, that doesn't prohibit zero rating.

I'd be more interested to see a response to the studies that Facebook quoted. Are they taken out of context? If not, they do seem to agree that free basics would help.