How and why Facebook’s Internet.org wants to connect 5 billion more people

With only one-third of the world’s population using the internet, there’s still a majority of people that don’t have internet access today. Facebook is one of many company’s hoping to change that, having started its Internet.org initiative in 2013 for what it expects to be a ten or more year effort.

Why invest the time and resources to bring internet access to the remaining two-thirds of the planet? It benefits us all, not just those five billion people who would be first time web users says Facebook’s Director of Global Connectivity, Chris Weasler. He explained both the challenges and the benefits faced by Internet.org: “Our strategy looks a network coverage data and there are two main hurdles. First, around 85 percent of the world’s population already lives near a network connection, but they’re not all on the web. So awareness is a huge barrier because people who don’t use the internet don’t know the value of the internet. Second is affordability of services.”