The author claims they would be free at a couple points in the article. On re-reading, that's precisely one of his complaints: providing a free service deprive

The author claims they would be free at a couple points in the article. On re-reading, that's precisely one of his complaints: providing a free service deprives governments of tax revenue. "Carriers, some of them foreign but some of them local, have been in many of these markets for years, providing for a fee services that companies such as Google and Facebook now want to provide for free. And they are big local employers (in Ghana, I was told Vodafone was the largest private employer), as well as taxpayers. [...] Essentially, these companies are trying to reap the reward of encouraging more people to use their services, such as WhatsApp, without doing the messy work that carriers and handset makers such as Nokia and Samsung do; that is, actually setting up businesses on the ground, paying taxes that help fund development and social services, employing and training that nation’s citizens, not to mention building real relationships."