Should Saving the World Be Profitable?

Last month was not a good one for billionaires’ new vision of global philanthropy.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, argued that he just wanted to provide bare bones Internet access, free of charge, to poor, unconnected communities in India.

The problem was that the service, called Facebook Free Basics, would let users visit certain sites for free, then bill them for others. That’s not do-gooding, Indian authorities decided; it was a way for Facebook to monopolize the shape of Internet access in the developing world, effectively controlling which websites people could visit.