A clear analog for this issue is television. I do not know, but was there ever such contention over OTA programming vs cable networks?
I view these proposals as very competitive - among mobile carriers, where we see much less competition (in the US at least) than we do among app developers.
It always seems curious to me that those who advocate most strongly to keep the government out of the content of the internet is also most vocal in advocating to get the government into regulation of the means of access. The two are not easily separable.
You mean that the people most vocal against the government deciding what they can read are also the most vocal against a corporation deciding what they can read?
You are right, those two are not easily separable.
Zero-rating is not the same as censorship. A corporation cannot prevent any individual from taking an action that individual wants to. A government can, if not make impossible, make very costly that same reading.
I would much rather have to pay extra for the internet, than trust any government, to benevolently regulate access to the internet. If the government regulates my access, then a corporation much larger than I can lobby quite effectively for regulatory change that I would not like.
If a corporation restricts what I can access (and that is not what is happening here - they are merely charging a different rate), then I have multiple options to choose from. I can cheaply break a contract with a corporation. I cannot cheaply break a contract with my government.
There is a qualitative difference to appreciate here. With corporations it is "What I want costs $50 extra a month." With a government, it can be "What I want sits behind the Great Firewall, and I may go to jail for consuming it."
I am not suggesting that the US government may turn into the Chinese. I am suggesting that the US government does some pretty shady things, and that regulatory capture is real, and worse for consumers, than firms competing by trying to offer me free things.
Please show your work on how you get from the facts of the matter, those being:
1) There is more than one mobile provider
2) Multiple of these providers are independently considering implementing zero-rating
3) Zero-rating is providing a service for free (no matter how limited)
4) Companies only give things away for free when they are seeking to maintain or increase their customer base
To the conclusion that we see a monopoly in mobile providers.
I view these proposals as very competitive - among mobile carriers, where we see much less competition (in the US at least) than we do among app developers.
It always seems curious to me that those who advocate most strongly to keep the government out of the content of the internet is also most vocal in advocating to get the government into regulation of the means of access. The two are not easily separable.