18 ms·

India, Jio, and the Four Internets

420 points by MindGods 6y ago

mallipeddi 6y ago
Can someone who is a domain expert comment on this statement I see being repeated often about Jio's ability to have a significantly lower cost structure by offering only 4G service with 'commodity hardware' versus the legacy players who are operating 2G/3G networks in conjunction with 4G? Is there a lot of truth to this or is this just something that the analysts have heard someplace and are now repeating it faithfully?
- harpratap 6y ago
  It is true. The ex-CTO of Jio, Tareq Amin, who pioneered this IP only network in Jio now works for Rakuten in Japan and he repeated the same feat here in even lesser time. You can lookup terms like NFV and Open-RAN to dig deeper. If you're familiar with web-infra it's similar to replacing expensive hardware routers from Cisco with a simple dumb server + FRR Disclaimer - I work for Rakuten
hesarenu 6y ago
Jio is the only option for a huge number of Indians - I don't how the author got this impression. There are many other players Airtel,idea even bsnl. The offers are more or less similar. Anyone can switch or use both. My main number is on Airtel and i use jio as well.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  Strategy is about simplifying idea in order to let the audience understand easily, and hopefully convince enough of them to act according to the implied direction in the idea. People who actually write strategy articles, and do not practice them, mimicking that by fabricating a convincing picture, and hopefully entertain their readers. That's why such strategy articles seldom wroth reading...
- yalogin 6y ago
  Airtel used to be the biggest player and in a few short years it has dwindled to 35% customer base of Jio. The rest of them are tiny compared to even Airtel. So sure you have options for now, but its increasingly looking like there won't be in the future. Also the original statement that Jio is the only option for a majority of Indians is true because a lot of people only joined the mobile revolution because of Jio.
  - pradn 6y ago
    How much of Jio's dominance is just dumping? It seems unfair to cross-subsidize an industry like this. It's good for users in the short term, but if competition dwindles, it'll be bad for Indians long-term.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      They built a vastly cheaper, more efficient network. That’s not dumping, just healthy competition.
      - pradn 6y ago
        Why is their network cheaper and more efficient?
    - yalogin 6y ago
      Jio actually broke the dominance of Airtel in India. Its a perfectly executed strategy IMO and capitalism at work. The company bled money to undercut Airtel and other companies to gain market share and they did it really well. Now they are the market leaders. I wish something like that happened in the US. It often feels like companies collude with pricing here.
      - funtoos 6y ago
        The same is happening in India where pricing of major telecom is at par with other.
- deleted 6y ago
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- victor106 6y ago
  The monopoly of Jio is extremely bad for India. It's an open secret that the Ambani's have significant control over most politicians and political parties in India. Any of the big tech companies who wish to make a significant presence in India have to go through Jio. The monies that Facebook and Google spent buying stakes in Jio is to assure them that their operations wont be hurt.
  - flak48 6y ago
    Exactly. Many people I know, myself included see the 'investments' being routed to Jio as buying assurances from the government that regulations like data localization and other pro-privacy, anti-west measures are halted or watered down. A shakedown, in other words.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - eklavya 6y ago
    I am pretty sure they are all investing because jio will come up with a one stop digital shop with them controlling it end to end. They will be launching a cloud. All these companies are investing now to get a piece of the big pie. There will be an IPO.
  - sbmthakur 6y ago
    > The monopoly of Jio is extremely bad for India. Any form of monopoly is bad. However, it's important to note that prior to Jio's entry in the market, the data prices were unaffordable for majority of the population. Post Jio's entry, the same incumbent network providers had to slash their prices.
  - el_programmador 6y ago
    As a plebeian, the only thing I'm worried about is my internet bill. Why should I worry who Ambani has political ties with as long as I'm getting cheap bandwidth?
    - bluecatswim 6y ago
- pradn 6y ago
  Numbers are portable, switching networks is as easy as getting a new Sim in the local market, many phones support two Sims at a time, and much of India is dense enough to support several mobile carriers - these factors keep the mobile market in India highly competitive.
bigpumpkin 6y ago
"Today friends, I have great pride in announcing that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India using 100% homegrown technology and solution. " Wow, that's amazing. Maybe the US and the UK can also import this 5G tech in our networks? I'm getting tired of ATT's fake 5GE.
- wadkar 6y ago
  I would wait until they get field trials and do a launch in India (which is what Jio plans anyways). I think if they can do it at India scale and complexity - they can pretty much do it anywhere in the world. India scale is obvious - large geography and relatively dense population. Complexity because of unreliability of basic infrastructure (like guaranteed power supply, people digging over your network pipeline etc.) I am usually a skeptic when it comes to claims made by companies in the Indian context, for example, my Jio connection is spotty at best in tier 2 city and very much a PITA if I go in the rural areas where the state owned BSNL is still the winner.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  India doesn't have any semiconductor fabs. If they're not making it in-country, I can't see how it's "homegrown technology".
  - unmole 6y ago
    Ever seen "Designed by Apple in California. Made in China."?
    - sbierwagen 6y ago
      Did Steve Jobs ever say the iPhone is "100% homegrown technology and solution"?
- econcon 6y ago
  Obviously he misled people. His firm can deploy cloud native soft infrastructure and data centers for 5G but not the hardware. And here too they are any special as Rukuten already does it. They still have the license technology from the vendors even if they manufacture it on their own. And why will vendor license it to them, and if they'll have to - they'll do so at the same profit margin which they'd make from direct selling of the hardware. Where are 5g hardware patents which Jio owns?
varbhat 6y ago
Back in 2015, costs for internet were not cheap,here in India. There were many who couldn't afford (including me).In those days(2015), I used to be on 2KBps network(You read it right, kilobytes per second). It was Idea Cellular's ₹68 2G plan(USD 0.91) where it provided 1Gigabyte of data for month. 3G plans were costlier. There was no 4G until Nov/Dec of 2015 when Airtel introduced 4G(it was hyped,but it was also costly.) There were no much 4G smartphones. Airtel wifi devices were advertised very much. In 2016 Nov, Jio did amazing job by giving 4G data free for almost 4 months(10GB per day was limit,i guess. Also, 2G speed afterwards). It then introduced cheapest 4G 1GB/day plan for ₹400/3 months( 5.37 USD for 3 months) .Few other cellular network companies gradually went bankrupt, but others too introduced cheap plans(comparable to jio plan). This way,they revolutionized Indian internet and i am thankful to them for providing Cheap and Good internet. But,it certainly was a curse for other ISPs(only jio,airtel(which bought few rival companies like tata docomo), and idea/Vodafone(both which got merged), state owned BSNL are remaining.
- signal11 6y ago
  Jio’s offer is really good on paper, but it’s got to be one of the slowest 4G networks I’ve used when I tried it in February. Anyone know if this is because of a lack of competition (there’s effectively one other serious player left in the Indian telco market right now), or capacity constraints?
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - perryizgr8 6y ago
    I can tell you after suffering Vodafone and Airtel that Jio is still the fastest. At least in Bangalore.
  - blocked_again 6y ago
    I think the speed is highly affected by the population density. I have seen speeds varying from ~40mbps to <1mbps. The less the density the higher the speed.
canistr 6y ago
This still largely ignores the Data Sovereignty issue for non-US citizens. The US government still maintains control and oversight of US companies that rule the non-China markets. Data flow still runs through US data centres or even through US companies. This is a huge con for citizens of non-US countries that simply don't want traffic and rules exported by the USG. Since, as non-US citizens, we're not subject to any of the "protections" afforded to a "US Person".
rudiv 6y ago
The success of Jio in great part is down to the government retroactively converting their spectrum licenses to GSM.
- flak48 6y ago
  Yep if anything I hope the Ambani family's escapades with Jio doesn't whitewash their deserved reputation as perhaps the most corrupt company in India. For those not aware, Jio itself came into being via a scam. (That the comment I replied to is alluding to). The TL;DR is Reliance acquired a company that had only managed to win an Internet Service Provider license auction (that too in a dubious manner [1], [2]) Then Reliance 'convinced' the government to let them convert the license [3] to allow them to provide voice services as well, for a paltry fee (the amount they paid was set in 2001 and did not account for inflation over 12 years - which is pretty significant in India). Thus Jio was able to become a full blown 4G cellular provider at a fraction of the cost of competitors like Vodafone, Airtel etc. [1] https://scroll.in/article/802277/why-its-crucial-for-apex-court-to-listen-to-prashant-bhushans-petition-on-reliance-jio https://scroll.in/article/802277/why-its-crucial-for-apex-co... [2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/dot-refutes-cags-charges-of-favouring-reliance-jio-by-allowing-it-to-convert-its-isp-permit-into-a-unified-license/articleshow/37537848.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/dot-re... [3] https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-it-take-to-approve-a-reliance-request https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-it...
Barrin92 6y ago
I feel like every Stratechery piece on Europe is just plain bashing because Ben Thompson is allergic to regulation. Somehow extrapolating from one Indian company, Jio, to some sort of global vision of an internet while completely disregarding the European continent (which in pure market value obviously still is large) just seems like bad faith. Every time I read one of these pieces about growth, growth and growth I'm reminded of Russ Ackoff. "“Science, technology, and economics focus on efficiency, but not effectiveness. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is important to an understanding of transformational leadership. Efficiency is a measure of how well resources are used to achieve ends; it is value-free. Effectiveness is efficiency weighted by the values of the ends achieved; it is value-full[...] Put another way: efficiency is a matter of doing things right; effectiveness is a matter of doing the right things. For example, the more efficient our automobiles have become, the more of them are on city streets. The more of them on city streets, the more congestion there is. The efficiency of an act can be determined without reference to those affected by it. Not so for effectiveness. It is necessarily personal. The value of an act may be, and usually is, quite different for different individuals. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is also reflected in the difference between growth and development, and development is of greater concern to a transformational leader than growth.” We don't need more internet companies for the sake of more internet companies, and more growth for the sake of growth. We need an internet that works for its citizens and members, and on that front I have still more trust in the old continent than I have even if China and the US keep producing a million more companies. If human rights and privacy isn't a vision I don't know what is.
- ruddct 6y ago
  Is he wrong, though? The US, Chinese and Indian models have a fairly strong vision for their internet ecosystems. What's Europe's, and who benefits? From the outside, the EU's big swings (GDPR, Cookie Law, Article 13, etc) look like reactionary messes, and it doesn't seem like their current behavior is doing much to help their companies, governments, or citizens.
  - ethbro 6y ago
    European (generalizing) models seem to have the problem that they generalize restrictions while specifying permissions. E.g. 'Thou shalt not store & use personal data' Overridden by 'Thou may store and use personal data, in a banking context, with clear user permission presented in an interactive graphical format, for user requests pertaining to tax information' DENY ALL + PERMIT {SITUATION} is not a recipe for innovation. Versus I'd say the US model is PERMIT ALL + DENY {SITUATION}. And India's model appears to be PERMIT ALL (in theory) + ARBITRARY BUREAUCRATIC DENY (in practice). Whereas Thompson's point seems to be that national champions effectively simplify this into the US model, albeit with a chokepoint / revenue siphon. Perhaps South Korea as a similar example?
wadkar 6y ago
I found the analysis on winners and losers for the Indian model to be lacking in depth. Specifically, if the Jio Platform truly intends to be a platform (as described by the Bill Gates line[1]) then it's a huge win for Indian companies and startup ecosystem. I wonder if FANGs will dramatically change their Indian operations and make their Indian subsidiaries the primary revenue engines with India first products and services. On a tangential note, what do these FANG subsidiaries in India primarily focus on? Is it more sales and business operations? Or do they also do "real software engineering" as well? Asking for a friend :)
- flak48 6y ago
  Amazon has teams with global and local impact, with the work somewhat on par with their US counterparts. Google generally has a bit of the shittier work in general (the permanent curse of India offices of US companies - local managers/directors having to beg and dig for work/charters). It's changing since Google Pay is run from India and other India specific teams are also coming to India. Google used to have the GSuite team in India that I think was shut down 3 years ago. Apple I think has a maps and small App Store/itunes team. (They are the exception since they don't seem to be seeking FANG like talent at least in India in terms of pay and candidate backgrounds) FB and Netflix don't have tech teams in India. All of FAANG have ops/business/sales team in India.
  - wadkar 6y ago
    Ah now it makes sense why there are so many Amazon recruiters pinging and connecting on LinkedIn :-) Thanks, I am happy to know Google Pay is run from India. Hope things change for the better for Google SWE/SREs in India - I am sure they're at par if not better than their Googleplex counterparts.
    - balladeer 6y ago
      > I am sure they're at par if not better than their Googleplex counterparts I have heard it's not. PS. Amazon's work-life balance is is non-existent in most teams.
odomojuli 6y ago
Now is the age of splinternets and digital sovereignty and social media populism. No mention of the Digital Iron Curtain?
chvid 6y ago
The hypocrisy of this: - Non-U.S. citizens operate with a high degree of freedom online, although there are minimal restrictions on the collection of the data generated from doing so by private companies or the U.S. government. - Non-U.S. companies are free to operate in the United States without restriction, and in other countries that follow the U.S.’s approach. Is really through the roof given how the same site just recently argued how TikTok must either be sold to the US or prohibited in this: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ The sad thruth is that the US is ok with a free internet as long as it is completely ruled by American companies and by extension the American surveillance state. If anything challenges that the piper will soon play a different tune.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > hypocrisy I don't see hypocrisy. One is a statement on how things are. The other how the author thinks it should be. The U.S. market is virtually ungated to new entrants, domestic or foreign. The author believes some gates should exist, specifically, with respect to TikTok.
denzil_correa 6y ago
Jio monopoly is a series of convenient regulations tailored to them over the last decade [0]. [0] https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reliance-jio-monopolise-telecom https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reli... I know the article is paywalled but it's the most comprehensive piece on the matter
- sbmthakur 6y ago
  Where were these regulations when mobile network companies refused to bring down prices in pre-Jio times?
- cocoland2 6y ago
  Customer service matters , quality of service matters. Jio & other players are pretty good at this. I had an earlier comment on my harrowing experience with BSNL Broadband!. Just crying foul on regulations (fair to a certain point) , does not take the argument anywhere atleast for BSNL or MTNL. Reliance may be no saint when it comes to lobbying , but hey the most popular number that did a previous regime was lobbying and the popular "2G scam" when Jio did not exist
ytdytvhxgydvhh 6y ago
Ben says: “Any company that wishes to achieve scale needs to do so in its home market first, before going abroad” Not really sure why this would be the case. Spotify didn’t do this did they?
- bestham 6y ago
  They did indeed. In Sweden we had Spotify from the summer / fall of 2008.
- blocked_again 6y ago
  Language barrier, cultural differences, time difference, payments, compliances, government regulations, initial userbase, network effects, hiring etc. It's so much easier for a startup to deal with these issues in home country than dealing with them in a different country. Also why will the investors give you money for starting in some other country than investing in someone who is already in that country. Ofcourse there are exceptions and you can start a lot of companies without dealing with these issues as well.
taobility 6y ago
There is no four Internets, only three: US Internets, China Internet and the other.
- wadkar 6y ago
  TFA proposes that Jio/India will be the fourth one - or at least that's what I understood from the post.
- intopieces 6y ago
  India banning TikTok creates a fourth Internet.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
screye 6y ago
Jio has kind of been like early Google, in that, at the point at which it revolutionized the industry, it was a monopoly that was welcomed by the masses. The quality of service they offered was just so much better than a lot of places, that it didn't make sense to use anything else. A lot of places in India had BSNL which was nothing short of terrible. It pushed the other private players to offer competitive services, and it honestly still feels nothing like a monopoly. (Jio has a 30% share) Not disregarding the rest of the points against it, but adding some context.
hash872 6y ago
I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences with complying with GPDR & expense. Ben is kind of a libertarian, and he takes it as an article of the libertarian faith that regulation simply entrenches incumbents/big companies by making it too expensive for new or smaller companies to break into a market. (He has made this point many, many times on Stratechery). Already in the private Stratechery forums, there's one person who said that he lead GPDR compliance for a startup and it wasn't expensive at all. What are other peoples' experiences with GPDR & cost?
- bronson 6y ago
  I did GDPR/CCPA consulting for a few retailers. If you have a good handle on the data you're storing (good data governance), compliance tends to be pretty easy. Even if you're being fast&loose with some of your customer data, the fix is usually to quit storing that data. We saw very few customers asking for their data to be deleted (they WANT to be your customer) so delete requests were a very part-time endeavor. If you don't have a good idea of the data you're storing (sadly, very common), or if you're abusing your customers, then it can take years of consultant-hours to unwind the idiocy. But that's not really the GDPR's fault. You would have needed to do this anyway. You'd be amazed at the kind of sensitive cruft that can pile up in SAP if you're not paying attention. It's good to give your systems a good scrubbing once in a while.
catchmeifyoucan 6y ago
I enjoy Ben's articles, but this one has way too many opinions, and I'm not convinced his stance of Europe is fair. For the Privacy Shield matter - "The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) basically ruled that US law is too weak to protect EU citizens' data to the extent EU law demands." We know this - Mr. Zuckerberg asked for more regulation if anything. Regulation from Europe is protection for the consumer. It is not a barrier to "experimentation". We can't release medicine without proper FDA approval. Approval sucks, but your data going forward will become just as important as your health. "Endless dialogs" are the ugly way our service providers choose to overcome these regulations. It just goes to show, that the tech we're building today isn't transparent. That's a failure of private business, not increasing regulations. As per Jio, India might be headed towards a future similar to China than the USA. Jio is highly state-centric and if anything, it parallels WeChat in a more free economy. It will likely eat SV internet companies, by letting them in, recreating their services, and using state-sponsored leverage to overcome barriers (not to mention talent). If anything, Europe is creating a more sustainable framework for private companies and government intervention. Cross the moat, and you don't have to worry about castles. Just build a good product. That's what I'm reading. Meanwhile, there are families in the USA who still don't have access to the internet. And no it's not Google's job to get us there. It's the government's. But our government doesn't intervene enough to support the necessary changes. BTW a quick search of "Europe Internet Vision" - and I came across: > Gigabit connectivity for all of the main socio-economic drivers > uninterrupted 5G coverage for all urban areas and major terrestrial transport paths > access to connectivity offering at least 100 Mbps for all European households.
- draw_down 6y ago
  > I enjoy Ben's articles, but this one has way too many opinions Oh, I had to laugh at that. He's a commentator! Good grief.
- azinman2 6y ago
  > If anything, Europe is creating a more sustainable framework for private companies and government intervention. Cross the moat, and you don't have to worry about castles. Just build a good product. That's what I'm reading. So it's just a market with restrictions for outside companies? I think the point of the article was the absence vision for Europe to generate its own compelling products and companies that spread throughout itself and the rest of the world.
ktrl 6y ago
Is it in the geopolitical interest of the West and India to use the same Internet platforms? Take a look at what reddit and YouTube users have to say about India. That kind of uncensored hatred and racism will push India right into the arms of Russia and China. It would be better for US-India relations if Indian Internet users also have local alternatives to choose from. Local alternatives where they don't have to hear what Cletus from Texas has to say about their country and religion.
- ra7 6y ago
  Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums. It's determined by mutual interest between governments and how their administrative officials think. YouTube and Reddit comments don't mean anything given that a vast majority don't understand nuances of geopolitics.
  - ktrl 6y ago
    >Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture. Millions of Indians being repeatedly exposed to what reddit and YouTube has to say about them will change their opinion about the West for the worse. The Indians who browse reddit and YouTube are more likely to be young and politically savvy. I'm not calling for censorship. One possible solution is that American Internet platforms create India-focused silos of their platforms. Indian Internet users (who wish to do so) should still be able to go out of their way to find out what Cletus from Texas has to say.
    - ra7 6y ago
      > Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture. They are not. Internet users affect public opinion, but only to an extent that it may influence domestic policy. International affairs are run levels above and they rarely take cues from the Internet because, as I said before, the general public lack the nuance in discussing geopolitics. Case in point, America's relationship with the Saudis. People in the US have been complaining "Saudi Arabia bad" for a long time, yet the alliance is as strong as ever because public opinion simply does not matter in geopolitics.
mola 6y ago
Always funny to read fanatics.
mola 6y ago
Fanatics always make me laugh. Maybe that's how I handle.my fear of them.
op03 6y ago
Too much overconfidence in Reliance. This is the same firm well known for totally missing the boat on India's IT boom. It has done a great job deploying the network. Unmatched probably anywhere in the world. But that set of skills has nothing to do with charting out a vision that will work in future. That set of skills to rollout a network at huge scale quickly, existed in India because of cut throat competition in the Telco space over 15 years. But the skills to handle the sociological, political and psychological fallout from Scale that Zuckerberg, Dorsey et al have to deal with 24*7 does not exist in India. They will get the Amazon/payments/delivery/cloud stuff,the easy stuff, right cuz the talent, cash, ambition and drive exists. But the other stuff, the stuff that actually requires vision, is waiting to blow in India. If you think polarization/inequality/fake news etc etc in US is bad, go and visit India. I was there in Jan and the whole place was burning. This bet on 4G/cloud/platforms etc is not because of some great vision of the future. It's really about crashing crude prices resulting in a huge pivot from their bread and butter Oil/Refining Business(they own the largest refinery in the world). It can all collapse or go nowhere as that start hitting issues no one has dealt with before. Plus there is the small issue of huge existing players who are not exactly lining up to bend over to the Ambanis. To sum up, the Indian Internet or whatever emerges there is in for a unpredictable wild ride over the next few years and the current rose tinted view of Reliance matches what Facebook had in its early year. Expect that to change.
- flak48 6y ago
  Maybe we are underestimating the power of their relations with the present government, in terms of an ally that can be used to threaten or harm competitors both Indian and foreign. Just like TikTok can be banned, other services can eventually be banned too, under the garb of nationalism or whatever and India can potentially go the full China way with Reliance as the Indian Baidu or Alibaba, or at least as a major rent seeker in the ecosystem. With enough protectionism a local company need not try to be a quality alternative to FB or Google. For example of some Indian Government protectionist whimsy that affected Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart take a look at [1]. Which 'coincidentally' came the same week that Reliance had announced plans to launch an ecommerce website in India [2]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-commerce-restrictions/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-com... [2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-outlines-his-plan-to-take-on-amazon-in-india https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-o...
shadykiller 6y ago
Reliance isn't an innovator. It's more like a contractor with deep pockets and political contacts. Gets laws and permits easily and deploys bought technology.
- cocoland2 6y ago
  This is very similar to what BSNL (the state telco) unions argue. The argument has been they got only 3G licenses when others got 4G , while there are some merits to it , let me tell you some examples on a common ground Broadband services. I wanted a broadband at home (2011) and i preferred BSNL as i could use the monthly bills as address proof. The nearest office was just 2 KM away (First problem , you have to go there and submit an application). I did that , and it took 10 days and follow up to see if Broadband connection can be"given" It was decided to be "given" after diligence. They gave me a connection , but i had to buy a router and take it to the office for PPPCoE and other configs (Second problem). After a year i moved houses , I was asked to go to an office that was 12 KM away to submit an application for cancellation (Problem 3) I asked for a move of the connection itself , the answer was that the new home is in a new "jurisdiction" and this office was not authorized (Problem-4) Well , i had enough and i got a new broadband (Jio did not exist then) . Called a number that was stuck on the wall of the Apartment , i got a connection activated the same day with a good router. If you think i am ranting , don't get me started on what happens if it rains and the connection goes or a thunder fried my router once (Problems 6,7,8...) How does it matter if there was no innovation or if the provider has deep pockets or political contacts ? What i think is it is not sufficient we have posters printed of this : https://stupidgyan.com/a-customer-is-the-most-important-visitor-on-our-premises-mahatma-gandhi-quote/ https://stupidgyan.com/a-customer-is-the-most-important-visi... , what matters is living them
vslira 6y ago
I feel like this article wasted an opportunity to discuss the seemingly larger trend - the splintering of the Internet - and focused too much on the (current) landscape for India (in contrast with US/CN/EU) I'm not an economist or specialist, but if I were to guess where the tech[1] world is moving towards, I'd look at established and mature industries like automobile manufacturing and trading. Or, to stay in the trade of intangibles (that is, services), Finance. I don't think there will be 3 or 4 internets, I believe that little by little each country will have its own internet and barriers to connection similar to how goods/services flow today: sometimes freely, sometimes not. This brings huge implications to current assumptions of growth for tech companies. At the same time I believe certain standards will be built, and agreements made, that will allow what we understand as the Internet today to exist between some or many jurisdictions, just like there are places where you can easily import cars or consume international financial services. In other words, I don't see Americans being blocked from reading Euro blogs or something like that. In the non tech world, roughly speaking, we went from protectionism to (varying degrees of) free trade, while in the tech world we will go from free trade to (varying degrees of) free trade. A leveling of expectations, if you will. [1] When I say tech I mean mostly sv-like internet-based companies. Hardware always followed the same pattern as everything else, with some changes in the near future due to concerns about backdoors and privacy.
627467 6y ago
Only adjacent to this conversation: I wonder what will be the impact for blockchain- crypto-tevh adoption as these "splinternets" (regionets?) become reality. I'm not saying it will be reality, but as Ben states I also sense forces that are adversarial to this "wild west" Internet. I'm sure there's millions of blockchain transactions broadcasted or mined in China (inside GFW) but, could further tightening of control become an important obstacle to new decentralized networks?
wtmt 6y ago
Jio was created with the premise that "data is the new oil" (its parent company Reliance Industries is huge on Oil & Gas). This is seen from the time the company was created and named. The way "Jio" is written officially is a mirror image of "Oil", alluding to the fact that the data collected (or usurped) by it is the most valuable thing. Jio also collects (or said it would collect) information about its users and their habits through traffic analysis and deep packet inspection. This would feed its ambitions in its other ventures in retail, entertainment and other market segments. India does not have a data privacy or data protection law. So this is all fair game for a company that's close to the government and is good at lobbying.
- throw93 6y ago
  > Jio also collects (or said it would collect) information about its users and their habits through traffic analysis and deep packet inspection You have a source for this, especially regarding deep packet analysis? Just curious.
  - wtmt 6y ago
    Yes, here’s one from Reuters from that time. [1] You can also find many other news sites reporting the same if you search for “Jio deep packet inspection data new oil”. [1]: https://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio/from-big-oil-to-big-data-inside-mukesh-ambanis-20-billion-start-up-idINKCN11611V https://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio/from-bi...
  - ffpip 6y ago
    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jio+deep+packet+inspection&ia=web&iai=r1-1&page=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B"v7exp"%3A"a"%2C"sltexp"%3A"b"%2C"wiadrk"%3A"b"%7D https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jio+deep+packet+inspection&ia=web&...
revel 6y ago
Ludicrous article considering that the Indian Data Protection Act is (well, will be) even more restrictive than GDPR
- flak48 6y ago
  It's going to be interesting to see how FB & Google's investments in Jio will end up shaping the bill. If not a way to nudge regulators to be lenient, this investment is perhaps a hedge.
pasticom 6y ago
The author's view of the evolving internet landscape. Real world geopolitical alliances and divides are increasingly being represented on the internet. Author Ben Thompson writes that the internet is dividing into 4 increasingly separate zones. Each zone dominated by a major power (United States, China, European Union, and India). Thompson outlines his views of vision behind the American, Chinese, and Indian zones while lamenting the lack of vision in the European zone.
curiousllama 6y ago
I'm surprised Ben didn't emphasize aggregation theory here - it might be the biggest example yet! The American internet is a disintermediated morass or tech product/service providers each building on each other to make the internet work. But each foundational industry that makes it up - chips, infrastructure, consumer products, applications - has relatively few players. By selling bits and pieces of itself, Jio is not only getting people to invest in it's vision, but getting a share of the oligoplies at each layer. Google's staying power can become Jio's, and by extension, the government's. India's telecom market is crazy competitive, and another ISP will quickly develop if the government lets it. The support of American tech companies will be Jio's real moat in the future.
spians 6y ago
> This has led to a regular number of collisions between foreign tech companies and India regulators, whether it be Facebook’s attempts to introduce Free Basics or WhatsApp payments, increasing restrictions on Amazon and Flipkart’s e-commerce operations, or most recently, the outright banning of TikTok on national security concerns. It should be cleared that all of these are isolated events and have nothing in common as for the reason. - Facebook's Free Basics was a direct threat to net neutrality. - WhatsApp payments are working fine now. There were many issues between their beta launch and the actual launch after almost two years but most of them were related WhatsApp's inability to comply with local data protection and storage law. (UPI related data must be stored in India IIRC). - Restrictions on Amazon and Flipkart has more to do with their anti competitive practices (promoting the seller in which they are the main stakeholders) and the pressure from retailer unions. - Banning of TikTok (along with all the other Chinese apps) is largely because of the recent tensions between India and China due to clashes at Ladakh border. Also this piece talks about privacy when discussing US and Europe model but doesn't mention it for China and India. We all know about data sharing of Chinese apps with CCP. But nobody is talking about the personal data protection when using Jio apps. I did some basic analysis and found the apps built by Jio platforms to have worse privacy policy then their US counter parts (and even their Chinese counter parts in some cases).
cosmodisk 6y ago
"The U.S. Internet model is a laissez-faire one, and it is hard to argue against its effectiveness." That's pretty much all it was needed to know about the article: one-sided, unbalanced opinion aka 'ours is good the rest is shit'. Having read some of the comments here, I want to point out to a few things. Number of Unicorns in the US vs Europe. There are a few reasons for this and not because US don't have GDPR. The US is massive market. 300M people speaking one language, having similar culture and etc. Europe is not one market. It's a mix of mainly small/medium size countries,where all speak different languages,have different cultures and etc. I'm Lithuanian.My country has fewer people than a few block in NY. So what do I do if I start some SaaS company? I start international business from day 1. So while my American competitor from the bay area is happily on the phone with the guys in NY closing deals,I'm still figuring out what my liability will be if I sel to someone in Boston. I can't get sales people working for me because nobody wants to work at night so they could do some call calling to the software companies in California. Finally,once I get some traction,I meet the local VCs. They give me 200-500K tops. My American counterpart gets 20M for the same stuff. Ok,so by now I've got money and I go to other western markets. Guten Morgen...You said what?? Wass?? Hi,I've got a great Saas offering! Wass??? So now I need to hire German,French, and Spanish speaking salesmen to sell into their markets. Ok,maybe it's easier just to open an office in France and get some local guys.Right,who knows French employment laws.. Shit..The American guy already closed B series by then and his company worth $5B. So: 1) US market is huge. That's why China is having so many Unicorns recently. China is maaasive. 2) VC industry in Europe is where the US industry was 20-30 years ago.You started earlier,got more experienced and are less conservative. 3) It's not the entire US producing tech unicorns. Majority are located only in a few clusters that happen to be very good at it. World is full of such examples: Italian optical glass makers, French high fashion clusters, Danish design agencies and etc. It's not that Kentucky and Alabama are producing the Facebooks of this world. 4) Internet needs to work for all stakeholders, not just giant US tech monopolists or average Joe in Europe. Right now it has a lot to be desired,while still providing tons of value. 5) The size of the company doesn't always make it better. Sometimes it's better to have a few smaller ones than one large( Oracle, SAP) that tend to stifle competition, push price up and not care about anything else( any fans of the US telcos here?)
divbzero 6y ago
OP is clearly presenting a simplified picture for sake of discussion, which made me wonder what populations or regions he might be leaving out. – Most populous continent not discussed: Africa [1] – Most populous country not discussed: Indonesia [1] – Biggest economy not discussed: Japan [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
- topher200 6y ago
  The author is based in Taiwan. I believe he would have good insight into developments and trends in Asian regions generally. That's a very interesting list of absent economies that you posted though. We don't hear much from the telecom/internet backbone from those areas... perhaps they don't have as much local development and rely more on US/China based developments and infrastructure.
codeisawesome 6y ago
I think the dismissal of EU does not sound properly justified - and the author writes off home grown innovation too easily in EU markets just because they are not “capable of chasing scale”. The bias is pretty clear for monopoly establishing practices one way or another. Interesting article otherwise.
addicted 6y ago
While Jio was a revolution in India, this article misses a lot of context. One of the primary reasons competitors could not respond was a combination of some trumped up scams which had them tied up in legal hassles when it came to allocations or frequencies for years, and because in a moment of some of the greatest idiocy every, the Indian legal system allowed the government to apply new taxation laws retroactively, leading to many competitors owing sums of many that was multiples of any possible revenue they earned and could have expected to earn in decades. In a further move of genius, the courts declared, in a completely unenforceable ruling, that their parent foreign investors were liable for the taxes breaking limited liability, and trying to apply Indian “laws” (this wasn’t really a law but something the court made up) abroad. It’s still not enforceable, but it froze any further investment from the majority of Jio’s competitors.
CarbyAu 6y ago
"but India’s path is perhaps a more populist and nationalistic one than many Americans would prefer." Really?!?
ramanujank 6y ago
What's more interesting than the topic discussed is the fact that Jio has been generating a large volume of chatter among prominent netizens, particularly in the tech space. I can point out to a slew of talks by Lew Later [1] in the past 15-20 days. Engadget [2]. Now Ben/Stratechery. It's nice to see India's part in the space that business ∩ tech ∩ people, apart from always being the focus of H1B related news. [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lew+later+india https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lew+later+india [2] https://www.engadget.com/tag/Jio/ https://www.engadget.com/tag/Jio/
- econcon 6y ago
  Consultants exist for this. I do not respect Reliance owner. If he was a good businessman, he would be have dominante more countries like US. Imho, best Indian businessman is Mittal owner of Arcelor Mittal.
econcon 6y ago
Who believes in Jio, if reliance owner was a good businessman, he's have dominated in many other countries. The only reason he survives in India is because government is in his hands. He has used this many times to harm competition.
- harsh3195 6y ago
  Jio is < 5 years old. Plus telecos typically kill one market first. Give it time.
avemuri 6y ago
> On the other hand, locking in a monopolistic player, particularly in the context of a government that has shown a desire for more control over the flow of information is a real downside. This may warrant more than a single sentence. The government has in the past gone as far as turning the internet off in areas it doesn't want in the public eye. Censorship and banning of outlets is fairly common, and rarely as high profile as the recent tiktok ban.
castevictim 6y ago
I think the lack of geographical proximity to Jio, didn't give Mr. Ben the complete picture of the forces at play. The story of Jio (Reliance) cannot be told without the political-corruption-nexus in India, by investing in Jio - Facebook, Google, Qualcomm etc. not only acquire stake in 'The Enterprise' of India but also guaranteed of political favors apart from access to data from millions of Indians through a single unregulated channel. Let me give you an example of the political reach companies like Adani, Reliance etc. which are in nexus with current ruling party - BJP have in India. I have personally heard from Ex. High Court judges that when they were presiding over cases involving Adani, Reliance they were approached by officials from those companies and were asked "Would you like to be a Governor after your retirement?". As there is practically no real opposition party left in India, BJP will rule India for for decades to come as it slips into total authoritarianism(like CCP). So being on good terms with Jio/Reliance aka BJP, guarantee these companies unfettered access to Indians and especially their data. I'm sure BJP already has the necessary infrastructure in place for analyzing data from Jio customers, now with Facebook, WhatsApp, Google you can see where this is going. As any non-alignment with Jio/Reliance/BJP means 'the end' as we are seeing with even Govt. institutions like BSNL(Telecom), HAL (Aircraft Manufacturer) etc. Any business in India or from abroad now should appease Jio if they have to survive.
- harsh3195 6y ago
  For decades? I think that's a gloomy thought. But these companies do have lobbies in all political parties. So whose in power won't make much of a difference.
  - castevictim 6y ago
    >So whose in power won't make much of a difference. It does, depending upon whether a party has a moral ceiling. Whether there's something which they wouldn't do. Unfortunately, there is no such limit for a party which does not believe in democracy. Why has India dropped in democracy ratings drastically?[0] What's worrying is, now that BJP has taught other parties how India's democracy can be broken, even if by some miracle some other party comes to power, it will do the same. So, I will agree with you then. But, that's not going to happen as BJP has ensured that no elections in future would be fair[1]. [0]https://www.oneindia.com/india/democracy-index-2019-india-slips-10-points-to-51st-rank-due-to-erosion-of-civil-liberties-3019542.html https://www.oneindia.com/india/democracy-index-2019-india-sl... [1]https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2020/jul/15/asian-development-bank-appoints-election-commissioner-ashok-lavasa-as-new-vice-president-2170113.html https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2020/jul/15/asian-....
known 6y ago
Casteism is 2000+ years old Organized Mafia, not Merit in India https://archive.is/h3TBP https://archive.is/h3TBP
est 6y ago
> China is the only country to rival the U.S. for the sheer size and breadth of its Internet companies, thanks to the combination of a massive market and the lack of competition Author assumes that Amazon, eBay, Newegg and Paypal was banned or blocked in China. It's not. Alibaba & jd.com won the market by competition.
naruvimama 6y ago
Net neutrality was an idea, when networks consisted of universities, big corporations and government institutions. Today the capex is entirely borne by ISP, Telcos, companies like Reliance. Free basics if it came into fruition would not have violated net neutrality, between the user and FB servers there would have been only one ISP in all probability. The Indian narrative on HN is dominated by 1%'ers who hardly represent or know the ground reality for the 1.3 billion people. For people so concerned about democracy, free press, evil INCs, free speech, duties on electronics..... it doesn't take a lot of effort to do some cursory research Free press - checkout Indian news channels on Youtube, the fact that they can get away with this nonsense, yet claim the press doesn't have freedom. In Europe the govt holds the purse strings via the compulsory radio, TV & media license. Duty on electronics - India is way cheaper than Europe for Laptops and Mobiles
bobbydreamer 6y ago
People who want privacy won't use Jio. At the moment Ambani's own the government this was pretty much clear when this article came "Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up". Theres nothing much need to be said about this. What's interesting about current Indian market, everybody want to settle up their debt or planning on delisting. Jio is just a way of Ambani settling up his debt nothing else new in it. JioMart is just another super Market like DMart(walmart clone). There is nothing new or benefit to end customer. Just another app.
- coder_seeker 6y ago
  > At the moment Ambani's own the government this was pretty much clear when this article came "Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up". The govt. clarified that Jio institute was selected under Greenfield Category from among 11 institutes that applied based on 4 parameters and was conditionally given letter of intent for Institute of Eminence tag subject to certain milestones to complete within 3 years. https://www.thequint.com/news/education/jio-institute-of-eminence-questions https://www.thequint.com/news/education/jio-institute-of-emi...
- coder_seeker 6y ago
  > JioMart is just another super Market like DMart(walmart clone). There is nothing new or benefit to end customer. Just another app. Is JioMart really another super Market like DMart or walmart? From what I understand it is going to connect already existing millions of local mom and pop stores to consumers through whatsapp platform/web for hyper-local delivery in hundreds if not thousands of cities. This is Definitely a new concept for India and will definitely benefit consumers as they will now have greater choice for online ordering of grocery, fmcg and other products at the press of a button.
MistahKoala 6y ago
As it's discussing future developments, another way of looking at the trajectory of a European model is to have folded it in to the Chinese model or mentioned as an adjunct to it; there's clearly admiration for the GFC within EU policy circles. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
coder_seeker 6y ago
Two well researched articles on Reliance Industries: it's origins and it's foray into 4G with Jio: 1> https://hind.substack.com/p/reliance-origins/ https://hind.substack.com/p/reliance-origins/ 2> https://hind.substack.com/p/from-oil-to-jio https://hind.substack.com/p/from-oil-to-jio

420 points by MindGods 6y ago

Can someone who is a domain expert comment on this statement I see being repeated often about Jio's ability to have a significantly lower cost structure by offering only 4G service with 'commodity hardware' versus the legacy players who are operating 2G/3G networks in conjunction with 4G? Is there a lot of truth to this or is this just something that the analysts have heard someplace and are now repeating it faithfully?

harpratap 6y ago
It is true. The ex-CTO of Jio, Tareq Amin, who pioneered this IP only network in Jio now works for Rakuten in Japan and he repeated the same feat here in even lesser time. You can lookup terms like NFV and Open-RAN to dig deeper. If you're familiar with web-infra it's similar to replacing expensive hardware routers from Cisco with a simple dumb server + FRR Disclaimer - I work for Rakuten

hesarenu 6y ago

Jio is the only option for a huge number of Indians - I don't how the author got this impression. There are many other players Airtel,idea even bsnl. The offers are more or less similar. Anyone can switch or use both. My main number is on Airtel and i use jio as well.

justicezyx 6y ago
Strategy is about simplifying idea in order to let the audience understand easily, and hopefully convince enough of them to act according to the implied direction in the idea. People who actually write strategy articles, and do not practice them, mimicking that by fabricating a convincing picture, and hopefully entertain their readers. That's why such strategy articles seldom wroth reading...
yalogin 6y ago
Airtel used to be the biggest player and in a few short years it has dwindled to 35% customer base of Jio. The rest of them are tiny compared to even Airtel. So sure you have options for now, but its increasingly looking like there won't be in the future. Also the original statement that Jio is the only option for a majority of Indians is true because a lot of people only joined the mobile revolution because of Jio.
- pradn 6y ago
  How much of Jio's dominance is just dumping? It seems unfair to cross-subsidize an industry like this. It's good for users in the short term, but if competition dwindles, it'll be bad for Indians long-term.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    They built a vastly cheaper, more efficient network. That’s not dumping, just healthy competition.
    - pradn 6y ago
      Why is their network cheaper and more efficient?
  - yalogin 6y ago
    Jio actually broke the dominance of Airtel in India. Its a perfectly executed strategy IMO and capitalism at work. The company bled money to undercut Airtel and other companies to gain market share and they did it really well. Now they are the market leaders. I wish something like that happened in the US. It often feels like companies collude with pricing here.
    - funtoos 6y ago
      The same is happening in India where pricing of major telecom is at par with other.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
victor106 6y ago
The monopoly of Jio is extremely bad for India. It's an open secret that the Ambani's have significant control over most politicians and political parties in India. Any of the big tech companies who wish to make a significant presence in India have to go through Jio. The monies that Facebook and Google spent buying stakes in Jio is to assure them that their operations wont be hurt.
- flak48 6y ago
  Exactly. Many people I know, myself included see the 'investments' being routed to Jio as buying assurances from the government that regulations like data localization and other pro-privacy, anti-west measures are halted or watered down. A shakedown, in other words.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eklavya 6y ago
  I am pretty sure they are all investing because jio will come up with a one stop digital shop with them controlling it end to end. They will be launching a cloud. All these companies are investing now to get a piece of the big pie. There will be an IPO.
- sbmthakur 6y ago
  > The monopoly of Jio is extremely bad for India. Any form of monopoly is bad. However, it's important to note that prior to Jio's entry in the market, the data prices were unaffordable for majority of the population. Post Jio's entry, the same incumbent network providers had to slash their prices.
- el_programmador 6y ago
  As a plebeian, the only thing I'm worried about is my internet bill. Why should I worry who Ambani has political ties with as long as I'm getting cheap bandwidth?
  - bluecatswim 6y ago
pradn 6y ago
Numbers are portable, switching networks is as easy as getting a new Sim in the local market, many phones support two Sims at a time, and much of India is dense enough to support several mobile carriers - these factors keep the mobile market in India highly competitive.

bigpumpkin 6y ago

"Today friends, I have great pride in announcing that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India using 100% homegrown technology and solution. " Wow, that's amazing. Maybe the US and the UK can also import this 5G tech in our networks? I'm getting tired of ATT's fake 5GE.

wadkar 6y ago
I would wait until they get field trials and do a launch in India (which is what Jio plans anyways). I think if they can do it at India scale and complexity - they can pretty much do it anywhere in the world. India scale is obvious - large geography and relatively dense population. Complexity because of unreliability of basic infrastructure (like guaranteed power supply, people digging over your network pipeline etc.) I am usually a skeptic when it comes to claims made by companies in the Indian context, for example, my Jio connection is spotty at best in tier 2 city and very much a PITA if I go in the rural areas where the state owned BSNL is still the winner.
sbierwagen 6y ago
India doesn't have any semiconductor fabs. If they're not making it in-country, I can't see how it's "homegrown technology".
- unmole 6y ago
  Ever seen "Designed by Apple in California. Made in China."?
  - sbierwagen 6y ago
    Did Steve Jobs ever say the iPhone is "100% homegrown technology and solution"?
econcon 6y ago
Obviously he misled people. His firm can deploy cloud native soft infrastructure and data centers for 5G but not the hardware. And here too they are any special as Rukuten already does it. They still have the license technology from the vendors even if they manufacture it on their own. And why will vendor license it to them, and if they'll have to - they'll do so at the same profit margin which they'd make from direct selling of the hardware. Where are 5g hardware patents which Jio owns?

varbhat 6y ago

Back in 2015, costs for internet were not cheap,here in India. There were many who couldn't afford (including me).In those days(2015), I used to be on 2KBps network(You read it right, kilobytes per second). It was Idea Cellular's ₹68 2G plan(USD 0.91) where it provided 1Gigabyte of data for month. 3G plans were costlier. There was no 4G until Nov/Dec of 2015 when Airtel introduced 4G(it was hyped,but it was also costly.) There were no much 4G smartphones. Airtel wifi devices were advertised very much. In 2016 Nov, Jio did amazing job by giving 4G data free for almost 4 months(10GB per day was limit,i guess. Also, 2G speed afterwards). It then introduced cheapest 4G 1GB/day plan for ₹400/3 months( 5.37 USD for 3 months) .Few other cellular network companies gradually went bankrupt, but others too introduced cheap plans(comparable to jio plan). This way,they revolutionized Indian internet and i am thankful to them for providing Cheap and Good internet. But,it certainly was a curse for other ISPs(only jio,airtel(which bought few rival companies like tata docomo), and idea/Vodafone(both which got merged), state owned BSNL are remaining.

signal11 6y ago
Jio’s offer is really good on paper, but it’s got to be one of the slowest 4G networks I’ve used when I tried it in February. Anyone know if this is because of a lack of competition (there’s effectively one other serious player left in the Indian telco market right now), or capacity constraints?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  I can tell you after suffering Vodafone and Airtel that Jio is still the fastest. At least in Bangalore.
- blocked_again 6y ago
  I think the speed is highly affected by the population density. I have seen speeds varying from ~40mbps to <1mbps. The less the density the higher the speed.

canistr 6y ago

This still largely ignores the Data Sovereignty issue for non-US citizens. The US government still maintains control and oversight of US companies that rule the non-China markets. Data flow still runs through US data centres or even through US companies. This is a huge con for citizens of non-US countries that simply don't want traffic and rules exported by the USG. Since, as non-US citizens, we're not subject to any of the "protections" afforded to a "US Person".

rudiv 6y ago

The success of Jio in great part is down to the government retroactively converting their spectrum licenses to GSM.

flak48 6y ago
Yep if anything I hope the Ambani family's escapades with Jio doesn't whitewash their deserved reputation as perhaps the most corrupt company in India. For those not aware, Jio itself came into being via a scam. (That the comment I replied to is alluding to). The TL;DR is Reliance acquired a company that had only managed to win an Internet Service Provider license auction (that too in a dubious manner [1], [2]) Then Reliance 'convinced' the government to let them convert the license [3] to allow them to provide voice services as well, for a paltry fee (the amount they paid was set in 2001 and did not account for inflation over 12 years - which is pretty significant in India). Thus Jio was able to become a full blown 4G cellular provider at a fraction of the cost of competitors like Vodafone, Airtel etc. [1] https://scroll.in/article/802277/why-its-crucial-for-apex-court-to-listen-to-prashant-bhushans-petition-on-reliance-jio https://scroll.in/article/802277/why-its-crucial-for-apex-co... [2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/dot-refutes-cags-charges-of-favouring-reliance-jio-by-allowing-it-to-convert-its-isp-permit-into-a-unified-license/articleshow/37537848.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/dot-re... [3] https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-it-take-to-approve-a-reliance-request https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-it...

Barrin92 6y ago

I feel like every Stratechery piece on Europe is just plain bashing because Ben Thompson is allergic to regulation. Somehow extrapolating from one Indian company, Jio, to some sort of global vision of an internet while completely disregarding the European continent (which in pure market value obviously still is large) just seems like bad faith. Every time I read one of these pieces about growth, growth and growth I'm reminded of Russ Ackoff. "“Science, technology, and economics focus on efficiency, but not effectiveness. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is important to an understanding of transformational leadership. Efficiency is a measure of how well resources are used to achieve ends; it is value-free. Effectiveness is efficiency weighted by the values of the ends achieved; it is value-full[...] Put another way: efficiency is a matter of doing things right; effectiveness is a matter of doing the right things. For example, the more efficient our automobiles have become, the more of them are on city streets. The more of them on city streets, the more congestion there is. The efficiency of an act can be determined without reference to those affected by it. Not so for effectiveness. It is necessarily personal. The value of an act may be, and usually is, quite different for different individuals. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is also reflected in the difference between growth and development, and development is of greater concern to a transformational leader than growth.” We don't need more internet companies for the sake of more internet companies, and more growth for the sake of growth. We need an internet that works for its citizens and members, and on that front I have still more trust in the old continent than I have even if China and the US keep producing a million more companies. If human rights and privacy isn't a vision I don't know what is.

ruddct 6y ago
Is he wrong, though? The US, Chinese and Indian models have a fairly strong vision for their internet ecosystems. What's Europe's, and who benefits? From the outside, the EU's big swings (GDPR, Cookie Law, Article 13, etc) look like reactionary messes, and it doesn't seem like their current behavior is doing much to help their companies, governments, or citizens.
- ethbro 6y ago
  European (generalizing) models seem to have the problem that they generalize restrictions while specifying permissions. E.g. 'Thou shalt not store & use personal data' Overridden by 'Thou may store and use personal data, in a banking context, with clear user permission presented in an interactive graphical format, for user requests pertaining to tax information' DENY ALL + PERMIT {SITUATION} is not a recipe for innovation. Versus I'd say the US model is PERMIT ALL + DENY {SITUATION}. And India's model appears to be PERMIT ALL (in theory) + ARBITRARY BUREAUCRATIC DENY (in practice). Whereas Thompson's point seems to be that national champions effectively simplify this into the US model, albeit with a chokepoint / revenue siphon. Perhaps South Korea as a similar example?

wadkar 6y ago

I found the analysis on winners and losers for the Indian model to be lacking in depth. Specifically, if the Jio Platform truly intends to be a platform (as described by the Bill Gates line[1]) then it's a huge win for Indian companies and startup ecosystem. I wonder if FANGs will dramatically change their Indian operations and make their Indian subsidiaries the primary revenue engines with India first products and services. On a tangential note, what do these FANG subsidiaries in India primarily focus on? Is it more sales and business operations? Or do they also do "real software engineering" as well? Asking for a friend :)

flak48 6y ago
Amazon has teams with global and local impact, with the work somewhat on par with their US counterparts. Google generally has a bit of the shittier work in general (the permanent curse of India offices of US companies - local managers/directors having to beg and dig for work/charters). It's changing since Google Pay is run from India and other India specific teams are also coming to India. Google used to have the GSuite team in India that I think was shut down 3 years ago. Apple I think has a maps and small App Store/itunes team. (They are the exception since they don't seem to be seeking FANG like talent at least in India in terms of pay and candidate backgrounds) FB and Netflix don't have tech teams in India. All of FAANG have ops/business/sales team in India.
- wadkar 6y ago
  Ah now it makes sense why there are so many Amazon recruiters pinging and connecting on LinkedIn :-) Thanks, I am happy to know Google Pay is run from India. Hope things change for the better for Google SWE/SREs in India - I am sure they're at par if not better than their Googleplex counterparts.
  - balladeer 6y ago
    > I am sure they're at par if not better than their Googleplex counterparts I have heard it's not. PS. Amazon's work-life balance is is non-existent in most teams.

odomojuli 6y ago

Now is the age of splinternets and digital sovereignty and social media populism. No mention of the Digital Iron Curtain?

chvid 6y ago

The hypocrisy of this: - Non-U.S. citizens operate with a high degree of freedom online, although there are minimal restrictions on the collection of the data generated from doing so by private companies or the U.S. government. - Non-U.S. companies are free to operate in the United States without restriction, and in other countries that follow the U.S.’s approach. Is really through the roof given how the same site just recently argued how TikTok must either be sold to the US or prohibited in this: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ The sad thruth is that the US is ok with a free internet as long as it is completely ruled by American companies and by extension the American surveillance state. If anything challenges that the piper will soon play a different tune.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> hypocrisy I don't see hypocrisy. One is a statement on how things are. The other how the author thinks it should be. The U.S. market is virtually ungated to new entrants, domestic or foreign. The author believes some gates should exist, specifically, with respect to TikTok.

denzil_correa 6y ago

Jio monopoly is a series of convenient regulations tailored to them over the last decade [0]. [0] https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reliance-jio-monopolise-telecom https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reli... I know the article is paywalled but it's the most comprehensive piece on the matter

sbmthakur 6y ago
Where were these regulations when mobile network companies refused to bring down prices in pre-Jio times?
cocoland2 6y ago
Customer service matters , quality of service matters. Jio & other players are pretty good at this. I had an earlier comment on my harrowing experience with BSNL Broadband!. Just crying foul on regulations (fair to a certain point) , does not take the argument anywhere atleast for BSNL or MTNL. Reliance may be no saint when it comes to lobbying , but hey the most popular number that did a previous regime was lobbying and the popular "2G scam" when Jio did not exist

ytdytvhxgydvhh 6y ago

Ben says: “Any company that wishes to achieve scale needs to do so in its home market first, before going abroad” Not really sure why this would be the case. Spotify didn’t do this did they?

bestham 6y ago
They did indeed. In Sweden we had Spotify from the summer / fall of 2008.
blocked_again 6y ago
Language barrier, cultural differences, time difference, payments, compliances, government regulations, initial userbase, network effects, hiring etc. It's so much easier for a startup to deal with these issues in home country than dealing with them in a different country. Also why will the investors give you money for starting in some other country than investing in someone who is already in that country. Ofcourse there are exceptions and you can start a lot of companies without dealing with these issues as well.

taobility 6y ago

There is no four Internets, only three: US Internets, China Internet and the other.

wadkar 6y ago
TFA proposes that Jio/India will be the fourth one - or at least that's what I understood from the post.
intopieces 6y ago
India banning TikTok creates a fourth Internet.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

screye 6y ago

Jio has kind of been like early Google, in that, at the point at which it revolutionized the industry, it was a monopoly that was welcomed by the masses. The quality of service they offered was just so much better than a lot of places, that it didn't make sense to use anything else. A lot of places in India had BSNL which was nothing short of terrible. It pushed the other private players to offer competitive services, and it honestly still feels nothing like a monopoly. (Jio has a 30% share) Not disregarding the rest of the points against it, but adding some context.

hash872 6y ago

I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences with complying with GPDR & expense. Ben is kind of a libertarian, and he takes it as an article of the libertarian faith that regulation simply entrenches incumbents/big companies by making it too expensive for new or smaller companies to break into a market. (He has made this point many, many times on Stratechery). Already in the private Stratechery forums, there's one person who said that he lead GPDR compliance for a startup and it wasn't expensive at all. What are other peoples' experiences with GPDR & cost?

bronson 6y ago
I did GDPR/CCPA consulting for a few retailers. If you have a good handle on the data you're storing (good data governance), compliance tends to be pretty easy. Even if you're being fast&loose with some of your customer data, the fix is usually to quit storing that data. We saw very few customers asking for their data to be deleted (they WANT to be your customer) so delete requests were a very part-time endeavor. If you don't have a good idea of the data you're storing (sadly, very common), or if you're abusing your customers, then it can take years of consultant-hours to unwind the idiocy. But that's not really the GDPR's fault. You would have needed to do this anyway. You'd be amazed at the kind of sensitive cruft that can pile up in SAP if you're not paying attention. It's good to give your systems a good scrubbing once in a while.

catchmeifyoucan 6y ago

I enjoy Ben's articles, but this one has way too many opinions, and I'm not convinced his stance of Europe is fair. For the Privacy Shield matter - "The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) basically ruled that US law is too weak to protect EU citizens' data to the extent EU law demands." We know this - Mr. Zuckerberg asked for more regulation if anything. Regulation from Europe is protection for the consumer. It is not a barrier to "experimentation". We can't release medicine without proper FDA approval. Approval sucks, but your data going forward will become just as important as your health. "Endless dialogs" are the ugly way our service providers choose to overcome these regulations. It just goes to show, that the tech we're building today isn't transparent. That's a failure of private business, not increasing regulations. As per Jio, India might be headed towards a future similar to China than the USA. Jio is highly state-centric and if anything, it parallels WeChat in a more free economy. It will likely eat SV internet companies, by letting them in, recreating their services, and using state-sponsored leverage to overcome barriers (not to mention talent). If anything, Europe is creating a more sustainable framework for private companies and government intervention. Cross the moat, and you don't have to worry about castles. Just build a good product. That's what I'm reading. Meanwhile, there are families in the USA who still don't have access to the internet. And no it's not Google's job to get us there. It's the government's. But our government doesn't intervene enough to support the necessary changes. BTW a quick search of "Europe Internet Vision" - and I came across: > Gigabit connectivity for all of the main socio-economic drivers > uninterrupted 5G coverage for all urban areas and major terrestrial transport paths > access to connectivity offering at least 100 Mbps for all European households.

draw_down 6y ago
> I enjoy Ben's articles, but this one has way too many opinions Oh, I had to laugh at that. He's a commentator! Good grief.
azinman2 6y ago
> If anything, Europe is creating a more sustainable framework for private companies and government intervention. Cross the moat, and you don't have to worry about castles. Just build a good product. That's what I'm reading. So it's just a market with restrictions for outside companies? I think the point of the article was the absence vision for Europe to generate its own compelling products and companies that spread throughout itself and the rest of the world.

ktrl 6y ago

Is it in the geopolitical interest of the West and India to use the same Internet platforms? Take a look at what reddit and YouTube users have to say about India. That kind of uncensored hatred and racism will push India right into the arms of Russia and China. It would be better for US-India relations if Indian Internet users also have local alternatives to choose from. Local alternatives where they don't have to hear what Cletus from Texas has to say about their country and religion.

ra7 6y ago
Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums. It's determined by mutual interest between governments and how their administrative officials think. YouTube and Reddit comments don't mean anything given that a vast majority don't understand nuances of geopolitics.
- ktrl 6y ago
  >Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture. Millions of Indians being repeatedly exposed to what reddit and YouTube has to say about them will change their opinion about the West for the worse. The Indians who browse reddit and YouTube are more likely to be young and politically savvy. I'm not calling for censorship. One possible solution is that American Internet platforms create India-focused silos of their platforms. Indian Internet users (who wish to do so) should still be able to go out of their way to find out what Cletus from Texas has to say.
  - ra7 6y ago
    > Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture. They are not. Internet users affect public opinion, but only to an extent that it may influence domestic policy. International affairs are run levels above and they rarely take cues from the Internet because, as I said before, the general public lack the nuance in discussing geopolitics. Case in point, America's relationship with the Saudis. People in the US have been complaining "Saudi Arabia bad" for a long time, yet the alliance is as strong as ever because public opinion simply does not matter in geopolitics.

mola 6y ago

Always funny to read fanatics.

mola 6y ago

Fanatics always make me laugh. Maybe that's how I handle.my fear of them.

op03 6y ago

Too much overconfidence in Reliance. This is the same firm well known for totally missing the boat on India's IT boom. It has done a great job deploying the network. Unmatched probably anywhere in the world. But that set of skills has nothing to do with charting out a vision that will work in future. That set of skills to rollout a network at huge scale quickly, existed in India because of cut throat competition in the Telco space over 15 years. But the skills to handle the sociological, political and psychological fallout from Scale that Zuckerberg, Dorsey et al have to deal with 24*7 does not exist in India. They will get the Amazon/payments/delivery/cloud stuff,the easy stuff, right cuz the talent, cash, ambition and drive exists. But the other stuff, the stuff that actually requires vision, is waiting to blow in India. If you think polarization/inequality/fake news etc etc in US is bad, go and visit India. I was there in Jan and the whole place was burning. This bet on 4G/cloud/platforms etc is not because of some great vision of the future. It's really about crashing crude prices resulting in a huge pivot from their bread and butter Oil/Refining Business(they own the largest refinery in the world). It can all collapse or go nowhere as that start hitting issues no one has dealt with before. Plus there is the small issue of huge existing players who are not exactly lining up to bend over to the Ambanis. To sum up, the Indian Internet or whatever emerges there is in for a unpredictable wild ride over the next few years and the current rose tinted view of Reliance matches what Facebook had in its early year. Expect that to change.

flak48 6y ago
Maybe we are underestimating the power of their relations with the present government, in terms of an ally that can be used to threaten or harm competitors both Indian and foreign. Just like TikTok can be banned, other services can eventually be banned too, under the garb of nationalism or whatever and India can potentially go the full China way with Reliance as the Indian Baidu or Alibaba, or at least as a major rent seeker in the ecosystem. With enough protectionism a local company need not try to be a quality alternative to FB or Google. For example of some Indian Government protectionist whimsy that affected Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart take a look at [1]. Which 'coincidentally' came the same week that Reliance had announced plans to launch an ecommerce website in India [2]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-commerce-restrictions/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-com... [2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-outlines-his-plan-to-take-on-amazon-in-india https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-o...

shadykiller 6y ago

Reliance isn't an innovator. It's more like a contractor with deep pockets and political contacts. Gets laws and permits easily and deploys bought technology.

cocoland2 6y ago
This is very similar to what BSNL (the state telco) unions argue. The argument has been they got only 3G licenses when others got 4G , while there are some merits to it , let me tell you some examples on a common ground Broadband services. I wanted a broadband at home (2011) and i preferred BSNL as i could use the monthly bills as address proof. The nearest office was just 2 KM away (First problem , you have to go there and submit an application). I did that , and it took 10 days and follow up to see if Broadband connection can be"given" It was decided to be "given" after diligence. They gave me a connection , but i had to buy a router and take it to the office for PPPCoE and other configs (Second problem). After a year i moved houses , I was asked to go to an office that was 12 KM away to submit an application for cancellation (Problem 3) I asked for a move of the connection itself , the answer was that the new home is in a new "jurisdiction" and this office was not authorized (Problem-4) Well , i had enough and i got a new broadband (Jio did not exist then) . Called a number that was stuck on the wall of the Apartment , i got a connection activated the same day with a good router. If you think i am ranting , don't get me started on what happens if it rains and the connection goes or a thunder fried my router once (Problems 6,7,8...) How does it matter if there was no innovation or if the provider has deep pockets or political contacts ? What i think is it is not sufficient we have posters printed of this : https://stupidgyan.com/a-customer-is-the-most-important-visitor-on-our-premises-mahatma-gandhi-quote/ https://stupidgyan.com/a-customer-is-the-most-important-visi... , what matters is living them

vslira 6y ago

I feel like this article wasted an opportunity to discuss the seemingly larger trend - the splintering of the Internet - and focused too much on the (current) landscape for India (in contrast with US/CN/EU) I'm not an economist or specialist, but if I were to guess where the tech[1] world is moving towards, I'd look at established and mature industries like automobile manufacturing and trading. Or, to stay in the trade of intangibles (that is, services), Finance. I don't think there will be 3 or 4 internets, I believe that little by little each country will have its own internet and barriers to connection similar to how goods/services flow today: sometimes freely, sometimes not. This brings huge implications to current assumptions of growth for tech companies. At the same time I believe certain standards will be built, and agreements made, that will allow what we understand as the Internet today to exist between some or many jurisdictions, just like there are places where you can easily import cars or consume international financial services. In other words, I don't see Americans being blocked from reading Euro blogs or something like that. In the non tech world, roughly speaking, we went from protectionism to (varying degrees of) free trade, while in the tech world we will go from free trade to (varying degrees of) free trade. A leveling of expectations, if you will. [1] When I say tech I mean mostly sv-like internet-based companies. Hardware always followed the same pattern as everything else, with some changes in the near future due to concerns about backdoors and privacy.

627467 6y ago

Only adjacent to this conversation: I wonder what will be the impact for blockchain- crypto-tevh adoption as these "splinternets" (regionets?) become reality. I'm not saying it will be reality, but as Ben states I also sense forces that are adversarial to this "wild west" Internet. I'm sure there's millions of blockchain transactions broadcasted or mined in China (inside GFW) but, could further tightening of control become an important obstacle to new decentralized networks?

wtmt 6y ago

Jio was created with the premise that "data is the new oil" (its parent company Reliance Industries is huge on Oil & Gas). This is seen from the time the company was created and named. The way "Jio" is written officially is a mirror image of "Oil", alluding to the fact that the data collected (or usurped) by it is the most valuable thing. Jio also collects (or said it would collect) information about its users and their habits through traffic analysis and deep packet inspection. This would feed its ambitions in its other ventures in retail, entertainment and other market segments. India does not have a data privacy or data protection law. So this is all fair game for a company that's close to the government and is good at lobbying.

throw93 6y ago
> Jio also collects (or said it would collect) information about its users and their habits through traffic analysis and deep packet inspection You have a source for this, especially regarding deep packet analysis? Just curious.
- wtmt 6y ago
  Yes, here’s one from Reuters from that time. [1] You can also find many other news sites reporting the same if you search for “Jio deep packet inspection data new oil”. [1]: https://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio/from-big-oil-to-big-data-inside-mukesh-ambanis-20-billion-start-up-idINKCN11611V https://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio/from-bi...
- ffpip 6y ago
  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jio+deep+packet+inspection&ia=web&iai=r1-1&page=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B"v7exp"%3A"a"%2C"sltexp"%3A"b"%2C"wiadrk"%3A"b"%7D https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jio+deep+packet+inspection&ia=web&...

revel 6y ago

Ludicrous article considering that the Indian Data Protection Act is (well, will be) even more restrictive than GDPR

flak48 6y ago
It's going to be interesting to see how FB & Google's investments in Jio will end up shaping the bill. If not a way to nudge regulators to be lenient, this investment is perhaps a hedge.

pasticom 6y ago

The author's view of the evolving internet landscape. Real world geopolitical alliances and divides are increasingly being represented on the internet. Author Ben Thompson writes that the internet is dividing into 4 increasingly separate zones. Each zone dominated by a major power (United States, China, European Union, and India). Thompson outlines his views of vision behind the American, Chinese, and Indian zones while lamenting the lack of vision in the European zone.

curiousllama 6y ago

I'm surprised Ben didn't emphasize aggregation theory here - it might be the biggest example yet! The American internet is a disintermediated morass or tech product/service providers each building on each other to make the internet work. But each foundational industry that makes it up - chips, infrastructure, consumer products, applications - has relatively few players. By selling bits and pieces of itself, Jio is not only getting people to invest in it's vision, but getting a share of the oligoplies at each layer. Google's staying power can become Jio's, and by extension, the government's. India's telecom market is crazy competitive, and another ISP will quickly develop if the government lets it. The support of American tech companies will be Jio's real moat in the future.

spians 6y ago

> This has led to a regular number of collisions between foreign tech companies and India regulators, whether it be Facebook’s attempts to introduce Free Basics or WhatsApp payments, increasing restrictions on Amazon and Flipkart’s e-commerce operations, or most recently, the outright banning of TikTok on national security concerns. It should be cleared that all of these are isolated events and have nothing in common as for the reason. - Facebook's Free Basics was a direct threat to net neutrality. - WhatsApp payments are working fine now. There were many issues between their beta launch and the actual launch after almost two years but most of them were related WhatsApp's inability to comply with local data protection and storage law. (UPI related data must be stored in India IIRC). - Restrictions on Amazon and Flipkart has more to do with their anti competitive practices (promoting the seller in which they are the main stakeholders) and the pressure from retailer unions. - Banning of TikTok (along with all the other Chinese apps) is largely because of the recent tensions between India and China due to clashes at Ladakh border. Also this piece talks about privacy when discussing US and Europe model but doesn't mention it for China and India. We all know about data sharing of Chinese apps with CCP. But nobody is talking about the personal data protection when using Jio apps. I did some basic analysis and found the apps built by Jio platforms to have worse privacy policy then their US counter parts (and even their Chinese counter parts in some cases).

cosmodisk 6y ago

"The U.S. Internet model is a laissez-faire one, and it is hard to argue against its effectiveness." That's pretty much all it was needed to know about the article: one-sided, unbalanced opinion aka 'ours is good the rest is shit'. Having read some of the comments here, I want to point out to a few things. Number of Unicorns in the US vs Europe. There are a few reasons for this and not because US don't have GDPR. The US is massive market. 300M people speaking one language, having similar culture and etc. Europe is not one market. It's a mix of mainly small/medium size countries,where all speak different languages,have different cultures and etc. I'm Lithuanian.My country has fewer people than a few block in NY. So what do I do if I start some SaaS company? I start international business from day 1. So while my American competitor from the bay area is happily on the phone with the guys in NY closing deals,I'm still figuring out what my liability will be if I sel to someone in Boston. I can't get sales people working for me because nobody wants to work at night so they could do some call calling to the software companies in California. Finally,once I get some traction,I meet the local VCs. They give me 200-500K tops. My American counterpart gets 20M for the same stuff. Ok,so by now I've got money and I go to other western markets. Guten Morgen...You said what?? Wass?? Hi,I've got a great Saas offering! Wass??? So now I need to hire German,French, and Spanish speaking salesmen to sell into their markets. Ok,maybe it's easier just to open an office in France and get some local guys.Right,who knows French employment laws.. Shit..The American guy already closed B series by then and his company worth $5B. So: 1) US market is huge. That's why China is having so many Unicorns recently. China is maaasive. 2) VC industry in Europe is where the US industry was 20-30 years ago.You started earlier,got more experienced and are less conservative. 3) It's not the entire US producing tech unicorns. Majority are located only in a few clusters that happen to be very good at it. World is full of such examples: Italian optical glass makers, French high fashion clusters, Danish design agencies and etc. It's not that Kentucky and Alabama are producing the Facebooks of this world. 4) Internet needs to work for all stakeholders, not just giant US tech monopolists or average Joe in Europe. Right now it has a lot to be desired,while still providing tons of value. 5) The size of the company doesn't always make it better. Sometimes it's better to have a few smaller ones than one large( Oracle, SAP) that tend to stifle competition, push price up and not care about anything else( any fans of the US telcos here?)

divbzero 6y ago

OP is clearly presenting a simplified picture for sake of discussion, which made me wonder what populations or regions he might be leaving out. – Most populous continent not discussed: Africa [1] – Most populous country not discussed: Indonesia [1] – Biggest economy not discussed: Japan [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

topher200 6y ago
The author is based in Taiwan. I believe he would have good insight into developments and trends in Asian regions generally. That's a very interesting list of absent economies that you posted though. We don't hear much from the telecom/internet backbone from those areas... perhaps they don't have as much local development and rely more on US/China based developments and infrastructure.

codeisawesome 6y ago

I think the dismissal of EU does not sound properly justified - and the author writes off home grown innovation too easily in EU markets just because they are not “capable of chasing scale”. The bias is pretty clear for monopoly establishing practices one way or another. Interesting article otherwise.

addicted 6y ago

While Jio was a revolution in India, this article misses a lot of context. One of the primary reasons competitors could not respond was a combination of some trumped up scams which had them tied up in legal hassles when it came to allocations or frequencies for years, and because in a moment of some of the greatest idiocy every, the Indian legal system allowed the government to apply new taxation laws retroactively, leading to many competitors owing sums of many that was multiples of any possible revenue they earned and could have expected to earn in decades. In a further move of genius, the courts declared, in a completely unenforceable ruling, that their parent foreign investors were liable for the taxes breaking limited liability, and trying to apply Indian “laws” (this wasn’t really a law but something the court made up) abroad. It’s still not enforceable, but it froze any further investment from the majority of Jio’s competitors.

CarbyAu 6y ago

"but India’s path is perhaps a more populist and nationalistic one than many Americans would prefer." Really?!?

ramanujank 6y ago

What's more interesting than the topic discussed is the fact that Jio has been generating a large volume of chatter among prominent netizens, particularly in the tech space. I can point out to a slew of talks by Lew Later [1] in the past 15-20 days. Engadget [2]. Now Ben/Stratechery. It's nice to see India's part in the space that business ∩ tech ∩ people, apart from always being the focus of H1B related news. [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lew+later+india https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lew+later+india [2] https://www.engadget.com/tag/Jio/ https://www.engadget.com/tag/Jio/

econcon 6y ago
Consultants exist for this. I do not respect Reliance owner. If he was a good businessman, he would be have dominante more countries like US. Imho, best Indian businessman is Mittal owner of Arcelor Mittal.

econcon 6y ago

Who believes in Jio, if reliance owner was a good businessman, he's have dominated in many other countries. The only reason he survives in India is because government is in his hands. He has used this many times to harm competition.

harsh3195 6y ago
Jio is < 5 years old. Plus telecos typically kill one market first. Give it time.

avemuri 6y ago

> On the other hand, locking in a monopolistic player, particularly in the context of a government that has shown a desire for more control over the flow of information is a real downside. This may warrant more than a single sentence. The government has in the past gone as far as turning the internet off in areas it doesn't want in the public eye. Censorship and banning of outlets is fairly common, and rarely as high profile as the recent tiktok ban.

castevictim 6y ago

I think the lack of geographical proximity to Jio, didn't give Mr. Ben the complete picture of the forces at play. The story of Jio (Reliance) cannot be told without the political-corruption-nexus in India, by investing in Jio - Facebook, Google, Qualcomm etc. not only acquire stake in 'The Enterprise' of India but also guaranteed of political favors apart from access to data from millions of Indians through a single unregulated channel. Let me give you an example of the political reach companies like Adani, Reliance etc. which are in nexus with current ruling party - BJP have in India. I have personally heard from Ex. High Court judges that when they were presiding over cases involving Adani, Reliance they were approached by officials from those companies and were asked "Would you like to be a Governor after your retirement?". As there is practically no real opposition party left in India, BJP will rule India for for decades to come as it slips into total authoritarianism(like CCP). So being on good terms with Jio/Reliance aka BJP, guarantee these companies unfettered access to Indians and especially their data. I'm sure BJP already has the necessary infrastructure in place for analyzing data from Jio customers, now with Facebook, WhatsApp, Google you can see where this is going. As any non-alignment with Jio/Reliance/BJP means 'the end' as we are seeing with even Govt. institutions like BSNL(Telecom), HAL (Aircraft Manufacturer) etc. Any business in India or from abroad now should appease Jio if they have to survive.

harsh3195 6y ago
For decades? I think that's a gloomy thought. But these companies do have lobbies in all political parties. So whose in power won't make much of a difference.
- castevictim 6y ago
  >So whose in power won't make much of a difference. It does, depending upon whether a party has a moral ceiling. Whether there's something which they wouldn't do. Unfortunately, there is no such limit for a party which does not believe in democracy. Why has India dropped in democracy ratings drastically?[0] What's worrying is, now that BJP has taught other parties how India's democracy can be broken, even if by some miracle some other party comes to power, it will do the same. So, I will agree with you then. But, that's not going to happen as BJP has ensured that no elections in future would be fair[1]. [0]https://www.oneindia.com/india/democracy-index-2019-india-slips-10-points-to-51st-rank-due-to-erosion-of-civil-liberties-3019542.html https://www.oneindia.com/india/democracy-index-2019-india-sl... [1]https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2020/jul/15/asian-development-bank-appoints-election-commissioner-ashok-lavasa-as-new-vice-president-2170113.html https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2020/jul/15/asian-....

known 6y ago

Casteism is 2000+ years old Organized Mafia, not Merit in India https://archive.is/h3TBP https://archive.is/h3TBP

est 6y ago

> China is the only country to rival the U.S. for the sheer size and breadth of its Internet companies, thanks to the combination of a massive market and the lack of competition Author assumes that Amazon, eBay, Newegg and Paypal was banned or blocked in China. It's not. Alibaba & jd.com won the market by competition.

naruvimama 6y ago

Net neutrality was an idea, when networks consisted of universities, big corporations and government institutions. Today the capex is entirely borne by ISP, Telcos, companies like Reliance. Free basics if it came into fruition would not have violated net neutrality, between the user and FB servers there would have been only one ISP in all probability. The Indian narrative on HN is dominated by 1%'ers who hardly represent or know the ground reality for the 1.3 billion people. For people so concerned about democracy, free press, evil INCs, free speech, duties on electronics..... it doesn't take a lot of effort to do some cursory research Free press - checkout Indian news channels on Youtube, the fact that they can get away with this nonsense, yet claim the press doesn't have freedom. In Europe the govt holds the purse strings via the compulsory radio, TV & media license. Duty on electronics - India is way cheaper than Europe for Laptops and Mobiles

bobbydreamer 6y ago

People who want privacy won't use Jio. At the moment Ambani's own the government this was pretty much clear when this article came "Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up". Theres nothing much need to be said about this. What's interesting about current Indian market, everybody want to settle up their debt or planning on delisting. Jio is just a way of Ambani settling up his debt nothing else new in it. JioMart is just another super Market like DMart(walmart clone). There is nothing new or benefit to end customer. Just another app.

coder_seeker 6y ago
> At the moment Ambani's own the government this was pretty much clear when this article came "Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up". The govt. clarified that Jio institute was selected under Greenfield Category from among 11 institutes that applied based on 4 parameters and was conditionally given letter of intent for Institute of Eminence tag subject to certain milestones to complete within 3 years. https://www.thequint.com/news/education/jio-institute-of-eminence-questions https://www.thequint.com/news/education/jio-institute-of-emi...
coder_seeker 6y ago
> JioMart is just another super Market like DMart(walmart clone). There is nothing new or benefit to end customer. Just another app. Is JioMart really another super Market like DMart or walmart? From what I understand it is going to connect already existing millions of local mom and pop stores to consumers through whatsapp platform/web for hyper-local delivery in hundreds if not thousands of cities. This is Definitely a new concept for India and will definitely benefit consumers as they will now have greater choice for online ordering of grocery, fmcg and other products at the press of a button.

MistahKoala 6y ago

As it's discussing future developments, another way of looking at the trajectory of a European model is to have folded it in to the Chinese model or mentioned as an adjunct to it; there's clearly admiration for the GFC within EU policy circles. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...

coder_seeker 6y ago

Two well researched articles on Reliance Industries: it's origins and it's foray into 4G with Jio: 1> https://hind.substack.com/p/reliance-origins/ https://hind.substack.com/p/reliance-origins/ 2> https://hind.substack.com/p/from-oil-to-jio https://hind.substack.com/p/from-oil-to-jio