Why don’t Facebook and Google just embrace that they’re monetizing the third world?

[Commentary] You’d be hard pressed to find many fooled that Internet.org is anything but a Trojan horse for some big tech companies to access new customers.

We get how this works: First world firms go into third world nations under the banner of humanitarianism when the real point is to get their products to new sources of revenue. Been happening for years. But Mark Zuckerberg worked to spin it the other way. “Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,” he wrote. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.” He even kicked off the press barrage with the faux-intellectual question “Is connectivity a human right?” But what if Zuckerberg had just said, “Facebook has partnered with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung to bring Internet access to the third world. There are 5 billion people without the Internet and we believe that these new markets will be critical to our growth and bottom line. If successful, all of you that bought stock during our IPO will finally get your money back. As an added benefit, more people will get the Internet. And yeah ‘knowledge economy’ is a pretty preposterous buzzphrase.” Straight honesty (maybe lose the last part).

We know none of these companies would embark on this partnership if it wasn’t better for business. So let’s call a spade a spade and move on.