India, Jio, and the Four Internets • Hacker News Board

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#111

Post by bgorman » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

tsss wrote: post #105

darawk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But he actually makes a very specific point: > This Internet, though, f…

And why is that bad? I don't care if the software I'm using is coming from the US and if there are going to be globally dominant European internet companies. The only thing that counts to me is getting a good product, which privacy regulations are critical for, and getting taxes, which also requires more regulation not less.

If you were a European citizen you might be concerned about Europe's ability to compete in the Technology sector.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#112

Post by flak48 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

op03 wrote: post #86

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 t…

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-com...

[2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-o...

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#113

Post by pdonis » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #101

pdonis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's because of LACK of regulation. Had the US government enforced a 1-wire policy from the get-go (municipalities run single-mode fiber for the last mile and let ISPs compete at an aggregation point) The fact that this did not happen was not because of lack of regulation; it was because of too much regulation and regulatory capture by large ISPs. Plenty of municipalities wanted to do exactly what you describe, sin…

>Plenty of municipalities wanted to do exactly what you describe, since the benefits to their residents are obvious. No, municipalities were building out their own ISP because of a lack of the federal government drumroll ... mandating a 1-wire rule. They were left to try to come up with their own solution and their own funding. I've yet to hear of a single municipality building out last-mile fiber and leasing it back…

> I've yet to hear of a single municipality building out last-mile fiber and leasing it back to private ISPs.

Of course you haven't. The ones that tried it were forced to stop by regulations and lawsuits. And then ISPs have the gall to claim that it's not feasible because nobody is doing it.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#114

Post by bronson » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

hash872 wrote: post #40

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…

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#115

Post by flak48 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:02 PM UTC

revel wrote: post #100

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

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.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#116

Post by darawk » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

tsss wrote: post #105

darawk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But he actually makes a very specific point: > This Internet, though, f…

And why is that bad? I don't care if the software I'm using is coming from the US and if there are going to be globally dominant European internet companies. The only thing that counts to me is getting a good product, which privacy regulations are critical for, and getting taxes, which also requires more regulation not less.

Of course you don't. But European citizens care about economic growth, because it provides work and creates wealth and tax revenue for European citizens.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#117

Post by sbierwagen » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

bigpumpkin wrote: post #4

"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.

India doesn't have any semiconductor fabs. If they're not making it in-country, I can't see how it's "homegrown technology".

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#118

Post by nine_zeros » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

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…

> But it deeply upsets me that technology is not effectively used in here to solve the most fundamental issue that is of access to education, healthcare and electricity

Just as Zuckerberg couldn't conquer India, city kids will not be able to solve problems in rural India.

Why exactly are you expecting city kids to be able to solve a problem that they are fundamentally unaware of?

Why aren't you seizing this opportunity? Find a small problem, figure out a fix for it. Start a company or empower locals to start their own company that earns revenue.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#119

Post by catchmeifyoucan » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

throwaway744678 wrote: post #104

catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, Europe is a country, not a company. It isn't about maximizing profits. It's about maximizing the equity among citizens. I'd argue that the majority of consumers will take anything for free and not think about the consequences. Very much like an innocent child getting free food samples. Private businesses have no incentive to correct themselves. At the end of the day, if I was Europe, as a gover…

> At the end of the day, Europe is a country... Europe is definitely not a country!

Eeek! I screwed up here.

But referring to more of it as institution.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#120

Post by el_programmador » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

bluecatswim wrote: post #108

el_programmador wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The usual reasons monopolies are bad. Jio in particular is known for being highhanded in blocking websites. A couple weeks ago duckduckgo was unavailable on their network across India. [0] Last week, the government of India proposed some changes to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process which would make it easier for corporations to cause ecological damage without repercussions. A couple organizations publ…

Firstly, DDG was blocked by ALL Indian ISPs during that instance, not just Jio. People using Airtel, Vodafone, etc. were as much complaining in forums as the Jio users. From what I recall, BSNL was the only one who didn't block (due to their inefficiency perhaps!)

Secondly, with the kind of minuscule market share DDG has, they or their users can hardly get impacted by a couple hours' block. If anything, Indian govt. made them a favor by making them more famous! I for one don't recall #DDG ever trend on Twitter in recent history.