
India, Jio, and the Four Internets - MindGods
https://stratechery.com/2020/india-jio-and-the-four-internets/
======
varbhat
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
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?

~~~
trianglem
Interesting. I read an article that mentioned it was the fastest teleco(?) in
the world.

~~~
sk0g
Is it? A few replies here are mentioning being happy with ~40 Mbps in bigger
cities, meanwhile the last time I ran a speedtest in a busy CBD in Australia I
got 600Mbps or so on 4G.

~~~
duckfruit
I sure hope you're trolling, because as an American running an AT&T 4G phone
in the heart of Silicon Valley, 40 Mbps is about what I normally get on a good
day.

And I assure you I pay way more than $2/ month. In fact, AT&T's cheapest
unlimited plan starts around $65 - and thats the advertised price, which is
always _before_ taxes and fees, so its realistically around ~ $80 monthly once
all of those ludicrous surcharges are tacked on. Once again, this is for their
cheapest plan.

~~~
sk0g
I haven't really seen speed tests go below 60 Mbps or so in the crowded
residential building I live in!

Don't worry, the shitty and overpriced fiber we get more than offsets the
quality our wireless network may have.

------
castevictim
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.

~~~
unmole
> nexus with current ruling party - BJP

It's not like things were too different before. Mukesh Ambani supposedly
referred to the INC as _Apni Dukaan_. Both the Congress and BJP are more than
happy to appease Motabhai.

Source: [https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/mukesh-said-
haan...](https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/mukesh-said-haan-yaar-
ranjan-congress-to-ab-apni-dukaan-hai/268088)

~~~
castevictim
Yes, but the systematic dismantling of the independent agencies did not happen
during congress period even though there were always bootlickers around in
every govt.

Remember Auditor General of India, CBI(FBI equivalent) discovered and booked
Congress-alliance party members for scam while they were ruling? Now, CBI has
become a laughing stock is being used as lap dogs for ruling party to get
parties into alliance with them.

~~~
sseth
During congress rule, CBI was referred to as a "caged parrot". The CBI did not
act unless forced by the Supreme Court.

The CAG is a very different body - it is much more independent of government,
and did raise issues around 2G spectrum allocation and many other areas during
Congress time. I mean, the UPA had a minister running an entire TV station out
of BSNL lines running to his home, so really it was pretty blatant and hard
not to catch.

We should not confuse this type of corruption with doing favors to business
which does not show up in government books, and is not easy for CAG to catch.

~~~
gigatexal
To be fair I can’t think of a congress party member that was wanted for crimes
against humanity on an international scale until he became PM and all was
forgiven. [1]

[1]([https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
india-30826044](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30826044))

~~~
castevictim
It is indeed extraordinarily sad that we have accustomed to have 'A mass
murder accused' as prime minister and it is not even part of discussions
against the party which hosts him.

~~~
known
No sane person will respect Modi if they knew all the ugly/sub-human things he
did to become CM/PM; Hope 22 crores who voted for Modi are regretting now;

------
op03
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.

~~~
reactspa
Great points in parent comment.

Additionally: the problem of nepotism. The most recent shareholder AGM showed
up in my YouTube recos. I didn't watch the video, but in the mouse-over
preview there were only 3 people: Mukesh, his mother, and his wife.

~~~
tourist_on_road
Well, the entire business started with his father Dhiru bhai ambani. It just
happens to operate in a different way compared to the organizations we know in
the west.

------
chvid
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
> _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.

------
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.

~~~
azinman2
> 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.

~~~
catchmeifyoucan
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 government, I care less that my
citizens can easily start a businesses of their own. Taxes are great and all,
but it matters more to me that whatever option our citizens do go with (even
if overseas) is in their best interest.

It's not about becoming a super power and spreading across the world. It's
ensuring that your citizens are safe, protected and well-looked after even at
the expense of increased starting costs. It's a better long-term win for the
consumer.

~~~
throwaway744678
> At the end of the day, Europe is a country...

Europe is definitely not a country!

~~~
esperent
Also, I'm pretty sure people are talking about the EU here, not Europe.

~~~
nopzor
still not a country! :)

------
vslira
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.

------
wtmt
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
> 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.

~~~
ffpip
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jio+deep+packet+inspection&ia=web&...](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)

------
spians
> 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).

------
canistr
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".

------
hesarenu
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.

~~~
victor106
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.

~~~
el_programmador
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
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 published articles condemning these
changes and explained the procedure to oppose this process, their websites
were promptly blocked. [1]

[0]
[https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1278288303532302336](https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1278288303532302336)

[1] [https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/07/14/india-reportedly-
blocks...](https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/07/14/india-reportedly-blocks-
websites-of-3-environmental-organizations/)

~~~
el_programmador
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.

~~~
spians
> Secondly, with the kind of minuscule market share DDG has, they or their
> users can hardly get impacted by a couple hours' block

I would like to know the exact market share of DDG in India.

Also people who use DDG use it as their search engine. It would impact that
"minuscule" percent of people the same way the majority of people would get
impacted if google.com was banned for a couple of hours.

> If anything, Indian govt. made them a favor by making them more famous

Really?

> I for one don't recall #DDG ever trend on Twitter in recent history

So it's not that minuscule market share?

~~~
el_programmador
> I would like to know the exact market share of DDG in India.

Its very little as I've yet to come across someone who knows it outside techie
circles. Even many techies still use google because they seem to think it
gives better results.

Really? So it's not that minuscule market share?

Consider the amount of time and energy the PR departments of various companies
spend to get themselves trending on twitter each day? Whatever the size of
their market share, it certainly increased that day because of the trending.
People who've never heard about DDG started asking what it is and thus got to
know about it.

------
screye
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.

------
addicted
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.

------
wadkar
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
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
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
> 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.

~~~
wadkar
> I have heard it’s not.

Really? I was under the impression that the Hyderabad/Banglore office is old
enough that they must’ve figured out their hiring process by now. You would
expect at least great Infra/SRE support teams for Google Pay - as it’s an
India centric product.

As for Amazon - yeah, read those stories here on HN but not sure what to make
of it. They must be having huge churn in that case.

------
mallipeddi
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
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

------
Barrin92
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.

~~~
zpeti
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.

~~~
mola
Who said unicorns are good? Money =\= value. It's just a proxy, which doesn't
always work. You know how you can prevent regulation? Don't be excessive and
greedy.

~~~
azinman2
But where are the examples of the valued products in large use? Let's see..
Spotify ok, Mojang hmmmhmmm.... Rovio? Outside of Spotify, what do I use on a
daily basis as an American that's a valued EU-based company?

~~~
babesh
Not going to take sides but Europe does have innovation. It’s just not
necessarily commercial or they have been bought out. JetBrains, Minecraft,
Python, Linux, HTTP/HTML, ARM, DeepMind.

~~~
dragonelite
Wouldn't really count the UK as part of continental Europe, i see them more as
a part of the anglo sphere(US,UK,AUS and NZ). But wouldn't also say
programming language can be claimed by a continent because most are global
effort or contributions.

The scenario in my head is what if the US decides to put the same kind of
sanction/embargos they have put on Russia, Iran and China how well will the EU
handle such a economic/technological warfare, can we in the EU continue to
function by flipping a switch and have cyber sovereignty. Because as far as i
can see the EU tech sector got colonized by US companies, and i wouldn't be
surprised if the same happen with India in 10~20 years.

~~~
petre
The US won't probably go as far as to enact sanctions against the EU but
rather pressure its leaders to support US against Russia and China, like
banning Huawei spyware or commonly applying sanctions. Which we should
probably do anyway because its in our common interest.

------
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.

~~~
ra7
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
>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
> 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.

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

~~~
flak48
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-
co...](https://scroll.in/article/802277/why-its-crucial-for-apex-court-to-
listen-to-prashant-bhushans-petition-on-reliance-jio)

[2] [https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/dot-
re...](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)

[3] [https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-
it...](https://scroll.in/article/802282/how-many-committees-does-it-take-to-
approve-a-reliance-request)

------
shadykiller
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
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-visi...](https://stupidgyan.com/a-customer-is-the-most-important-
visitor-on-our-premises-mahatma-gandhi-quote/) , what matters is living them

------
627467
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?

------
avemuri
> 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.

------
naruvimama
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

------
hash872
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
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.

------
codeisawesome
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.

------
curiousllama
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.

------
ramanujank
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
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.

------
bobbydreamer
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
> 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-
emi...](https://www.thequint.com/news/education/jio-institute-of-eminence-
questions)

------
denzil_correa
Jio monopoly is a series of convenient regulations tailored to them over the
last decade [0] _.

[0] [https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-
reli...](https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reliance-jio-
monopolise-telecom)

_ I know the article is paywalled but it's the most comprehensive piece on the
matter

~~~
cocoland2
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

------
econcon
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
Jio is < 5 years old. Plus telecos typically kill one market first. Give it
time.

------
MistahKoala
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/2020/6487...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU\(2020\)648784_EN.pdf)

------
coder_seeker
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)

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

------
est
> 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.

------
known
Casteism is 2000+ years old Organized Mafia, not Merit in India
[https://archive.is/h3TBP](https://archive.is/h3TBP)

------
divbzero
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
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.

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

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

Really?!?

------
cosmodisk
"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?)

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

~~~
wadkar
TFA proposes that Jio/India will be the fourth one - or at least that's what I
understood from the post.

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

~~~
flak48
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.

------
bigpumpkin
"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.

~~~
econcon
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?

~~~
naruvimama
That perplexed me too.

There are other possibilities though

Completely different standards that can compete with 5G, improbable but there
have been alternate projects that have been worked on in the past that never
made it to the standards.

SDR except the MINO antennas. Jio isn't entirely new as a pioneer in teleco,
and their pockets are big enough to bring in talent or buy companies. I am
hoping for the best.

When you want your IP to be part of the standard that you want to push to the
entire world, there must be some limitations on your IP. Limited period, open
licensing terms and reasonable price. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping a
government from declaring the patent invalid or bring in anti-competitive
laws.

