Ads not the short-term solution for Internet.org funding says Zuckerberg
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has claimed it is unlikely he will be able to use advertising to fund his global rollout of web access as part of the Internet.Org programme.
Speaking to Bloomberg, the Facebook chief executive said that Internet.org - his initiative which aims to bring the internet to the two thirds of global population without access - will probabably run at a loss in the developing world as it is unlikely to generate substantial ad revenue to offset costs.
He said: “The reality is just that a lot people can’t afford to pay for data access in some of these areas; then they probably aren’t ad markets, and it's probably not going to be a place where it’s going to be particularly profitable in the near term.
“In fact, we’ll probably lose a bunch of money - just because supporting Facebook as a service, and storing the photos and content that people want to share, costs money and we probably won’t offset it by making much.”
However, on Internet.org’s mission Zuckerberg concluded: “But there’s this mission belief that connecting the world is really important, and that is something that we want to do. That is why Facebook is here on this planet.”
In the long run the Facebook founder stated that it is more important to get developing nations online before targeting them with adverts.
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