41–50 of 124 posts
India's female labor participation rate is 20%. In China, it's 60%. Smartphones can help bridge that gap a bit but real progress will probably come from creating safe, well-paying jobs.
That’s because you are not counting housekeeping and child rearing as essential labor which is inaccurate.
I'm struggling to see any honest point in this comment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But the fact that it only costs 9 cents a GB is amazing. 9cents in India would be equivalent to 1.91 USD after taking into account Purchasing Power Parity (OECD 2019). Therefore, you are in effect saying 1.91 USD per GB is amazing. You can not compare values without including purchasing power disparities.
PPP makes no sense when it comes to comparing data usage between countries. Data is not based on same supply/demand characteristics as physical goods. It is quite literally arbitrary. Much like most software you buy/subscribe to. Ever bought a digital product at 90% discount during Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Why don't you find physical products with 90% discounts (unless it is a clearance sale)? Because you can't…
We are not comparing data usage, we are comparing the value of two different currencies. The value of 100 US$ in India is different from that in the US or the EU. In order to normalise the value between two currencies, PPP is used. It doesn't matter what the 100US$ is spent on, data or food.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s because you are not counting housekeeping and child rearing as essential labor which is inaccurate.
Is there any particular reason why you are assuming that housekeeping and child rearing should be the exclusive responsibility of women? I'm struggling to see any honest point in this comment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But the fact that it only costs 9 cents a GB is amazing. It has now reduced to 4 cents per GB for Jio Fiber. I'm sure local ISPs have reduced prices even more just to compete with Jio (in some places you can get 3.3TB for 10$)
At that rate I am guessing the network doesn't have to deal with rain or snow or customer issues cause obviously the budget for all that is not required because how can it even exist? It's following the now classic Facebook model of pointing at scale achieved and outsourcing all the issues that scale produces to someone else namely govts, parents, teachers, the healthcare system, the police etc etc and then blaming a…
There is no such issue that ISPs are unable to solve with the infrastructure they have deployed at least for now. Keep in mind that what I am saying is anecdotal but I have a strong feeling it is the same for most Indians. In fact it was worse off earlier when they charged exorbitant rates but failed to deliver proper connectivity. Now things have improved multi-fold! Connectivity issues are now only evident when you travel to remote areas of the country. Earlier we had connectivity issues in the City/Town limits.
You are forgetting that it is at a scale of multiple hundreds of millions and potentially billions of customers that these ISPs are charging cents from. Every single day. That with value added services, which they charge extra, would mean they make a fortune!
Cost of labour is cheap in India. Land area being small is an added bonus as that would mean lesser cable laying work and lesser infrastructure. And since we skipped a generation of DSL/ADSL lines and jumped straight into 4G and Fiber we won't be facing much of the same issues that first World countries are facing today. Fixing network issues would be easier than say USA (you can fit 3 Indias (3.287 million square kms) in one USA (9.834 million square kms)).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s because you are not counting housekeeping and child rearing as essential labor which is inaccurate.
Is there any particular reason why you are assuming that housekeeping and child rearing should be the exclusive responsibility of women? I'm struggling to see any honest point in this comment.
I agree with you that this shouldn’t be the case, but right now it absolutely is the case in India.
Speech detection is just amazing when you think about illiterate folk, it's a game changer for them. Jio's genius was offering free data plans for a year, getting folks hooked. But the fact that it only costs 9 cents a GB is amazing.
> But the fact that it only costs 9 cents a GB is amazing. 9cents in India would be equivalent to 1.91 USD after taking into account Purchasing Power Parity (OECD 2019). Therefore, you are in effect saying 1.91 USD per GB is amazing. You can not compare values without including purchasing power disparities.
More than the statistics, it's the stories that open your imagination to the unlock connectivity is bringing. Using WhatsApp to report timber theft is something I would never have guessed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
PPP makes no sense when it comes to comparing data usage between countries. Data is not based on same supply/demand characteristics as physical goods. It is quite literally arbitrary. Much like most software you buy/subscribe to. Ever bought a digital product at 90% discount during Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Why don't you find physical products with 90% discounts (unless it is a clearance sale)? Because you can't…
> PPP makes no sense when it comes to comparing data usage between countries. We are not comparing data usage, we are comparing the value of two different currencies. The value of 100 US$ in India is different from that in the US or the EU. In order to normalise the value between two currencies, PPP is used. It doesn't matter what the 100US$ is spent on, data or food.
But you are comparing value of currencies by comparing two equal goods. That would mean also comparing acquisition of raw materials, labour costs, import/export of goods, availability of resources etc which is never going to be the same. PPP itself has shortcomings (you can read them here: https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/international-trade/15-cr...).
For example, India might have abundance of rice while USA might have shortage of rice. But rice is used for making noodles in both countries and demand for rice is equivalent in both countries. Would you price it according to PPP index? Nope. You take into account any tariffs imposed by host country. What about transport? What about labour costs? There are so many variables that can influence the pricing of a product. PPP is a bad way to judge cost of living and cost of goods/services.
If PPP is 21.3 (2019 data) between USA and India, a Harley Davidson in India should be 21.3 times cheaper than a Harley Davidson in USA. It isn't. The cost is pretty much the same. So is the case with iPhones. Even if iPhones are manufactured in India it would still cost slightly less than in USA. It will never be 21.3 times cheaper.
Also, let us take Big Mac Index into account. It was a humorous take on PPP devised by economists to compare the costs of a Big Mac between countries (as McDonalds maintained standards between countries). Now the cost of a Big Mac in India and a Big Mac in US might not reflect the true PPP of the country because it all depends on the appetite of Indians for a Big Mac. We are avid consumers of street food. Street food for us is what is McDonalds for Americans. Now how can you make McDonalds as a standard for the World when in my part of the World a tiny percentage of the population visits McDonalds to consume their delicious burgers while a large percentage eats street food? Wouldn't that obviously influence the price of a McDonalds burger in India as the demand for it is next to non-existent? Now let me reverse the case and say that India tomorrow undergoes a massive cultural change and everyone shifts from eating street food to eating at a McDonalds burger joint. What would the price of a Big Mac in India be then? Obviously with high demand the cost falls rapidly. PPP should blow up right? But does that truly reflect the standard of living between two countries? That is a food for thought for you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At that rate I am guessing the network doesn't have to deal with rain or snow What’s the connection between weather and fiber?
> What’s the connection between weather and fiber? Exposed cables (and there are some, at least in US—my installer had to run some last-mile cables from the nearest, uh, tower, I guess, to my house) suffer from poor weather.