Looking at Vodafone's margins in countries such as Kenya (via Safaricom) they're amongst the highest for a telco in the world. This was even true before MPESA came along. These companies can afford to pay outrageously high license fees, taxes, interest expenses amongst other things and still invest in networks all around the country & still turn a heavy profit. Safaricom, MTN, Vodacom whatever so long as its a wireless communications company are the largest or in the top 5 in the countries they operate in.
The problem comes about is there are two information platforms. One on an expensive 3G/Edge based network (the internet) and the other an information platform based on a cheaper SIM App/SMS. This isn't a problem you can solve by throwing money at it. Bill Gates can't fix this that easily.
You see services pop up that use SMS to get information over a web experience because of these costs. It would be better if everyone had access to first grade information instead of falling back to SMS.
Back to the central point these telecoms firms have more power to solve the issue than Bill Gates does. Whether he tackles malaria or not you'll still see them spend heavily in infrastructure. They just charge too much and people are incentivized fall back to these SMS like alternatives (which MPESA is also built on btw). But these SMS-like services are not the internet. So its not at the loss of this if he invests in an anti malaria campaign.
I think its not he's trashing other people's priorities. The world was fine before the internet came long, it did help. But diseases have caused harm for as far as the dawn of recorded time.
