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India, Jio, and the Four Internets

stratechery.com

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Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#41

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayiionqz wrote: post #39
RestlessMind wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Broadband and mobile prices are far more reasonable in Europe than in the US. Unlimited data+calls for Also the EU banned roaming fees and GDPR prevents the data reselling and privacy violations that carriers and ISP in other countries could introduce at some point. On the other hand the US is unable to keep broadband companies from arbitrary price increases or per-building monopoly. Health care prices are also out-o…

[deleted]

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#42

Post by ethbro »

ruddct wrote: post #21
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.

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?

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#43

Post by zpeti »

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…

What exactly gives you more faith in the old continent? The thousands of unicorns Europe has? No, there are hardly any. The UX nightmares cookie laws create? No. Lower bandwidth fees than in the US? That is actually because of regulatory capture in the US, plus the sheer size of the continent, nothing to do with free markets.

So how exactly is Europe so great? The most unicorns came out of the UK who have just decided they’ve had enough of all the regulations.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#44

Post by catchmeifyoucan »

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#45

Post by sachdevap »

nktsg wrote: post #33
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…

Nicely put. I think the idea of disruptive innovation by technology is very much influenced by the industrial revolution in the west. And only now is that we've started to discuss in public domain the consequences of it on nature and our species. Sadly, most of the Indian entrepreneurs today are still influenced by the Western model of technical innovation and disruption having blind spots about how to use technology…

Is someone else supposed to work on solving the local issues while you personally reap the rewards of working in the tech domain? Is your work pushing against the status quo of any of these fundamentals you talk about?

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#46

Post by newyankee »

nktsg wrote: post #33
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…

Nicely put. I think the idea of disruptive innovation by technology is very much influenced by the industrial revolution in the west. And only now is that we've started to discuss in public domain the consequences of it on nature and our species. Sadly, most of the Indian entrepreneurs today are still influenced by the Western model of technical innovation and disruption having blind spots about how to use technology…

A lot of Indian entrepreneurs who have grown in cities do not even understand the problems of the real India and blindly copy western solutions in many cases. Dining at an upscale restaurant or shopping at a fancy retailer in a swanky neighborhood you can see how weird some of the solutions are.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#47

Post by wadkar »

flak48 wrote: post #30
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 GSu…

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#48

Post by ktrl »

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#49

Post by perryizgr8 »

signal11 wrote: post #22
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?

I can tell you after suffering Vodafone and Airtel that Jio is still the fastest. At least in Bangalore.
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