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India, Jio, and the Four Internets

stratechery.com

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Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#21

Post by ruddct »

Barrin92 wrote: post #8

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…

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#22

Post by signal11 »

varbhat wrote: post #5

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 cost…

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?

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#23

Post by flak48 »

victor106 wrote: post #17
hesarenu wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#24

Post by RestlessMind »

Barrin92 wrote: post #8

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…

> We need an internet that works for its citizens and members, and on that front I have still more trust in the old continent

I broadly agree with the spirit of this line. But I fail to see how Europe is achieving that. Can you share a few specific (and meaningful) examples of how European approach has created an outcome which works better for its citizens and members?

So far from what I have seen, European companies (eg. Spotify) seem to have a similar modus operandi as their US counterparts. Many European countries are still in NATO and hence would collaborate with the US government for security purposes when push comes to shove. And the key regulatory initiatives either haven't proven effective in curbing US giants' powers (eg. GDPR) or have pretty strong counter-arguments rooted in principles (eg. Right to be forgotten vs freedom of speech).

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#26

Post by bestham »

ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote: post #13

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?

They did indeed. In Sweden we had Spotify from the summer / fall of 2008.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#27

Post by pradn »

hesarenu wrote: post #2

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.

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#28

Post by pradn »

yalogin wrote: post #14
hesarenu wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#29

Post by [deleted] »

varbhat wrote: post #5

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 cost…

[deleted]

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#30

Post by flak48 »

wadkar wrote: post #9

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 s…

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.

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