"If you grew up, and you never had a computer, and you've never used the Internet, and someone asked you if you wanted to buy a data plan, your response would be 'What's a data plan, and why would I want to use this?'"
About this Quote
Zuckerberg is selling inevitability by pretending to be puzzled. The setup is a small thought experiment that makes “data plan” sound like an alien object until you’ve already accepted the premise: of course you wouldn’t want it if you don’t know what it is. That’s the point. He’s reframing connectivity not as a luxury purchase but as a basic condition you only question when you’re excluded from it.
The subtext is a quiet defense of aggressive expansion. If nonusers can’t articulate why they’d want the internet, then the burden shifts to the provider to decide on their behalf. It’s a paternalistic move dressed up as empathy: they don’t want data because they can’t imagine what it unlocks. That logic conveniently sidesteps the messier reasons people might resist - cost, surveillance, addiction, misinformation, dependency on a single platform, or simply the right to opt out.
Context matters: this line fits Facebook-era evangelism around “connecting the unconnected,” a period when Silicon Valley treated access as moral progress and business growth as a happy byproduct. The rhetorical trick is to erase the politics of infrastructure. Data becomes a neutral pipe rather than a product with gatekeepers, pricing, and power.
It also flatters the already-connected listener. If you’re online, you’re “grown up” in a modern sense; if you’re not, you’re premodern, waiting to be initiated. The intent isn’t to ask what people need. It’s to make the answer feel self-evident before the real questions arrive.
The subtext is a quiet defense of aggressive expansion. If nonusers can’t articulate why they’d want the internet, then the burden shifts to the provider to decide on their behalf. It’s a paternalistic move dressed up as empathy: they don’t want data because they can’t imagine what it unlocks. That logic conveniently sidesteps the messier reasons people might resist - cost, surveillance, addiction, misinformation, dependency on a single platform, or simply the right to opt out.
Context matters: this line fits Facebook-era evangelism around “connecting the unconnected,” a period when Silicon Valley treated access as moral progress and business growth as a happy byproduct. The rhetorical trick is to erase the politics of infrastructure. Data becomes a neutral pipe rather than a product with gatekeepers, pricing, and power.
It also flatters the already-connected listener. If you’re online, you’re “grown up” in a modern sense; if you’re not, you’re premodern, waiting to be initiated. The intent isn’t to ask what people need. It’s to make the answer feel self-evident before the real questions arrive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|
More Quotes by Mark
Add to List



