Facebook’s free Internet for the poor leaves out high-bandwidth sites

Facebook announced the Internet.org platform, "an open program for developers to easily create services that integrate with Internet.org."

Any developer will be able to build services that can be accessed through Internet.org, but there are limits on what they can offer. Although Facebook's announcement said the goal is to let users "explore the entire Internet," that will not include high-bandwidth services. "Websites that require high-bandwidth will not be included," Facebook wrote. "Services should not use VoIP, video, file transfer, high resolution photos, or high volume of photos." The version of Facebook available on the Internet.org app has the same limitation, as it removes photos and videos. Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the company's reasoning in an accompanying video. It isn't financially sustainable to offer free access to everything on the Internet, he said. "This program supports itself," he said. "When people use free basic services, more of them then decide to pay to access the broader Internet, and this enables operators to keep offering the basic services for free. It's not sustainable to offer the whole Internet for free, though. It costs tens of billions of dollars a year to run the Internet, and no operator could afford this if everything were free. But it is sustainable to build free basic services that are simpler, use less data, and work on all low-end phones." Developers who build services for the Internet.org platform must optimize them for browsing on both smartphones and basic phones, as well as for "limited bandwidth scenarios." "In addition, websites must be properly integrated with Internet.org to allow zero rating and therefore can’t require JavaScript or SSL/TLS/HTTPS," Facebook said.