Facebook Zero-Rating in Colombia: Impact on Internet Culture and Advertising Opportunities

What is also a possibility is that they do it in some markets, but not all. I live in Colombia and Facebook pays the big providers here to zero-rate their stuff, and they have been doing that for many years.
Because many poor people live here, zero-rating is important. You can literally buy a data package here for less than 1 euro. The regular data will run out within 10 minutes, but they can still use WhatsApp and Facebook for three days.

Those people who buy these packages are not going to use Telegram or Signal, because then they cannot use them when the data runs out. And buying a larger package is not an option either.

And also because Meta products have been zero-rated here for so long, the entire culture is built around this. If I want to make a reservation at a restaurant? WhatsApp. Want to make an appointment with the doctor? WhatsApp. But even local shops here often don’t have a website, but only an Instagram and/or Facebook page, because anyone can visit them, even if they don’t have data.

I don’t use Facebook or Instagram, but it’s pretty much impossible to live here without WhatsApp.

So long story short. Facebook can introduce ads here without many people switching to something else. So maybe they only import it to countries like Colombia.

2023-11-08 17:25:00
#WhatsApp #ads #app #chat #messages