Encouraging domestic companies in the digital space

If a nation were to try and be self-sufficient in the digital space, where are the chances of success higher? It is a different issue that a 100% domestically owned company is rare the bigger a company gets. So, achieving self-sufficiency without diluting domestic ownership is not common.

Internet companies can be divided into the following categories:

1. User-generated content
Examples include social networks and social clouds, such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube.

There is a first mover advantage here. If your associates are not on a platform, there is little incentive for you to join that platform. It is not too wise to replicate existing leading platforms and hope to poach their users. A newer kind of platform is the best bet. Facebook offered something different than Orkut. Instagram offered a different kind of experience from Flickr and Picasa. TikTok offers a different kind of platform from Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

2. E-commerce
This offers a good chance for domestic start-ups. Along with fast delivery and good customer support, if a platform offers cheaper products, users will abandon older platforms and move over to the newer one. Cheapest service usually wins.

3. E-wallets
There is a first mover advantage but being the cheapest trumps that. Whoever offers the cheapest service wins. India has the BHIM UPI app. But it has far lesser users compared to Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm UPI because those companies offered more freebies and were hence cheaper.

4. Content library
Streaming sites, be they music, movies, educational videos. Quantity, quality and price of the content are the three factors. For music, quality is similar everywhere. What matters is quantity and pricing. For movies, quality and pricing since the content is usually mutually exclusive. For educational videos, quality and pricing are the two most important issues. This segment is likely to always remain a multi-player field.

5. Aggregators of offline services
The online aggregator needs to offer availability of services, good customer support and cheap pricing. It is similar to e-commerce. Brand loyalty is less. Cheapest service for the end-user wins as long as the price suits the offline service provider.

6. Pure internet services
Usability and features along with pricing wins. Think of video conferencing services. Better features wins. First mover advantage is not very prominent.

My favourite academic books

Monographs, not compilation of essays or stand-alone articles. In no particular order. I shall keep adding to this list as I remember more works which have stayed with me.

When an academic is also a fiction writer or a poet, the book is often very readable if one knows enough about the subject being discussed. C.S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love has several sentences which made me appreciate his writing style. Alas, I do not know enough French to complete the book.

1. Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800 (1983)

2. Erica Fudge, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern England (2006)

3. Penguin Monarchs series

4. Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)

5. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought  (1978)

6. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of our Death. Translated by Helen Weaver. Originally published as L’homme devant la mort (1977)

7. Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (1948)

8. David Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights (2003)

9. Sharmistha Gooptu, Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation (2010)

Let them speak

Let them speak

words which mean nothing.

Is it only they who can speak?

Let them post

lies of many hues.

Can they match my jasmine’s white streak?

Let them shout

space away from us.

Won’t the gadfly make the horse weak?

Let them jail

Our bodies and rights.

Can they cover up the sun all week?

Their billboards

engulf our shadows.

At noon, no eyes move up to peek.

Fear the meek

new invincibles.

It is your downfall which we seek.