I didn't say anything that could be construed as an apologist argument for the cable industry, or even the wireless industry. You can only accuse me of being a

I didn't say anything that could be construed as an apologist argument for the cable industry, or even the wireless industry. You can only accuse me of being a T-mobile apologist - and what they are doing hugely benefits me, considering my limited budget. And I'm not alone. Nothing of what you said replies to the difficulties in competing against Facebook or other internet giants when they're paying to prevent competition from newcomers. 1) I argued that zero-rating music services isn't as anti-competitive as it's made it out to be. Since 27 services (many of which I hadn't heard of) made it onto the list, it can't be that hard for a newcomer to get onto the list. 2) Facebook Zero is a developing world issue. I said earlier that I don't have the experience to comment on developing-world issues, but let me take a stab at it now (this is sort of long): if you lived in a part of Africa that had no electricity but had cellphone reception (this is quite common), there's a good chance you would rather have Facebook and Wikipedia for free on your phone, as opposed to having a level playing field among all services yet being able to afford none of them. (<-- TL;DR) Of course Facebook isn't being purely benevolent in offering this for free - they want to increase their MAUs and ad revenue, and get a hold on the market. Which is why I said I don't necessarily agree with that they're doing. BUT, you can see how the argument has its merits. Yes, this makes it hard for another social network to gain usage share in that market. Duh. It would be hard if you were a startup from SoMa, and it would be equally hard (but much more soul-crushing) if you were a startup from the same region and can't get what Facebook does from the local wireless carriers. What do customers in such markets want? The bottom 90% of customers in such a market will almost certainly want Facebook and Wikipedia for free. 3) As for congestion: I just wanted to pose the Spotify Premium vs Maps question to you. No wireless company ever mentioned "reducing congestion" as the reason for their zero-rating policies (it doesn't make sense anyway), so the subject of congestion is out of place here, and your questions about congestion are completely irrelevant here. That part of my response was very poorly worded now that I read it. paid traffic being prioritized over free traffic is essentially reinforcing the internet slow-lane. Not quite. The important difference is that it's paid for by the consumer, not by the content provider. Even today, those who pay more for a better internet package get their traffic prioritized over those who pay less and everyone's fine with this. See, for example, Google Fiber's slower free tier in Kansas City.