I don't accept this premise. This is a false dichotomy because these are not the only two options. There is a third, better option: to get access to the entire internet.

A company offering you that choice is using a classic game-theoretic bargaining approach: commit to only allowing a restricted set of possibilities, of which the other person's best option is the one you want to happen. This makes it sound like the company has no chioce in the matter: they are just presenting you with the options, and you are the one who has to choose between eliminating this poor Iraqi's internet or giving her partial access. In reality, the company has stacked the deck by presenting you with this particular pair of options.

I'm not saying it's completely illegitimate for a company to want to sponsor free partial internet for those who don't have it in some places of the world.

But I am saying it is opposite from the ideal we should be working towards in already-developed countries like the USA. Ideally, the company providing internet should not at all be vertically integrated with the company providing websites on it and should have no incentive to prioritize one over the other.

1. Local folks taking turns calling a handful of BBSes.

2. BBSes synchronizing some messages with each other, even long-distance.

3. BBSes providing some limited Internet services (email, newsgroups).

4. Quasi-Internet services like Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL.

5. Slow but "real" Internet access. All content available but still had to ration use.

6. Fast, ubiquitous, unmetered, unthrottled Internet.

7. An ISP that doesn't care if you run a server.

While I strongly sympathize with anyone sitting at #6 or #7 who views a move to any previous step as a huge regression, I can't sympathize with denying people any kind of connectivity unless they can snap their fingers and manifest the infrastructure to enable #5. All of those previous steps served a purpose at the time.

Developing economies have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes as first mover, and leapfrog ahead to something more robust against all these threats we're facing today (centralization, stratification, eavesdropping, denial of service, walled gardens...).

BBSes were an artifact of the old phone infrastructure, so that's not a necessary phase, but otherwise the story would look roughly the same: Local communities gradually connect peer-to-peer and then interconnect. This time wirelessly, securely, without entrenched middlemen.

Now you could make the same argument that you made in your post, but I don't think the lightbulb company comes off looking so good.

Posting garbage about poor people's situations that is untrue only serves to hurt everybody. Please stop.

Verizon's zero-rating of themselves is anything but.

It's not so hard to imagine the harm that comes from Verizon or AT&T picking winners based on the relationships they have and blocking innovation.

FWIW, that isn't just a hypothetical situation; it's already happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero

What does that have to do with Iraq and its internet access?? Not that it isn't important. It just has nothing to do with internet access in the United States.

you're not exactly elaborating on how that example applies.

I see no evidence here, yet you claim Net neutrality 'absolutists' need to tone down their rhetoric, and give no cited or strong example as to what is actually wrong with net neutrality.

If you do believe that Iraqis should be able to have zero rated Wikipedia, because they are poor, shouldn't poor Americans (of which their are millions living in abject poverty) be able to get zero rated services as well?

However the FCC of which the article speaks (which sets the tone of the conversation that is about what article I would naturally think) is based and regulating companies and is regulating institutions within ....you guessed it! The United States.

I don't believe Iraqis should have zero rated internet access. I also believe you aren't quoting me saying as such. Again I ask: how is what Iraqs telecom regulations are have an impact on the FCC?

And to be clear I believe strongly in net neutrality in the USA and abroad. It just holds no direct bearing on FCC policy.

I think zero rating in essence limits access, allows ISPs to pick winners and losers on the internet, and could threaten the next great platform for free speech.

I'm still awaiting a real factual rebuttal to net neutrality. I'd love to hash these ideas out. How does zero rating actually benefit anyone? How does the current changes and near term purposed structure of telecom regulations benefit the average consumer? How would you seek to increase competition specifically.

Not hide vagaries of "reduce regulation". What regulations exactly?

In this same thread I posted at length what I believe to be strong facts in favor of net neutrality. I can re post them here if you like.

You're describing colonialism. Let me rephrase what you said: "It's better for poor Iraqi to get free access to American web services even though that hurts other upstart web services (such as Iraqi ones), than for poor Iraqis to have no web services at all."

How is this different that colonial powers sending back wealth from the colonies they conquered? If "eyeballs" are the currency of the internet, what you're describing channels those eyeballs to US companies while suppressing local competition that might keep that wealth in the countries of origin.

It's like saying the poor Iraqi is better off getting free coca-cola, and getting locked into coca-cola for the rest of his life, than actually getting water (and, if they desire, the possibility of coca-cola).

A country growing its infrastructure, which is apparently not yet essential, under the perverse influence of a non-neutral playing field, is a country that will have immense trouble shaking that influence off in the future. As an example, look at America and its relationship to cars vs. public transport.

If you want me to "bite a bullet", here I'm biting it: The Iraqi is better off without internet. Give him true choice or let him continue to be free of the delusion that Facebook == The Internet.

I'm from Peru. I came from a well-off peruvian background, and I've seen the families of my rich peruvian peers as well as foreigners exploit the hell out of poor people in that country, all while claiming that anyone who wants to enforce some minimum standards or think long-term, is "condescending", or "paternalistic".

I've put forward the case of America being hooked on an endless and destructive addiction to cars. I can bring up many others, such as the existing ones with opioids, or unhealthy food. What do you put forward? How many drug pushers have a healthy relationship to their clientele, and help them knock the habit as soon as possible?

Stop being disingenuous, you know full-well that's what Zuckerberg was aiming for with `internet.org`.

The idea that NN vs. non-NN network proliferation is an intrinsically paternalistic battle is flipped on its head when cast in real terms.

If you believe that it is OK that Iraqis can access Wikipedia for free via zero rating, then there are exceptions to NN, because zero rating is inherently anti-NN. From then on, it is a slippery slope. Is it OK to zero rate data only in "poor" countries? The moment they get rich enough, must we ban it? Is any non-profit allowed to zero rate, but all for-profits are not?

My point is, once you open the door to anti-NN practices being acceptable, you must then start analyzing all situations individually.

I respect NN absolutists although I disagree with them. At least they have a coherent philosophy.