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India Pushes Back Against Tech 'Colonization' by Internet Giants (nytimes.com)
In India, American companies dominate the internet. Facebook's WhatsApp is the most popular app on phones. Virtually every smartphone runs on Google's Android system. YouTube is the favorite video platform and Amazon is the No. 2 online retailer. For some Indian political leaders, it is as if their nation --which was ruled by Britain for a century until 1947 -- is being conquered by colonial powers all over again. And they are determined to stop it. From a report: "As a country, we have to all grow up and say that, you know, enough of this," Vinit Goenka, a railways official who works on technology policy for India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said at a conference last week. In recent months, regulators and ministers across India's government have declared their intention to impose tough new rules on the technology industry. Collectively, the regulations would end the free rein that American tech giants have long enjoyed in this country of 1.3 billion people, which is the world's fastest-growing market for new internet users. The proposals include European-style limits on what big internet companies can do with users' personal data, a requirement that tech firms store certain sensitive data about Indians only within the country, and restrictions on the ability of foreign-owned e-commerce companies to undercut local businesses on price. Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, commented on the story, saying, "India is currently the most important country in term of defining the future of Internet policy. It sits at the fulcrum between the United States and China. As it goes, so goes the world."
In the 1960's, IBM chose to leave the market in India because of how the government tried to force them to do business.
and restrictions on the ability of foreign-owned e-commerce companies to undercut local businesses on price.
What is the incentive for Indian companies to lower prices?
Ken
Inevitable, and only reasonable that instead of foreign conglomerates exploiting their markets through colonialism, that it be replaced by indigenous exploitation of their own people through corruption. :-) See "India Continues To Rank Among Most Corrupt Countries In The World" ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/r... ).
Start passing out the MIGA hats!
Yoda says "has".
Table-ized A.I.
"For some Indian political leaders, it is as if their nation -- which was ruled by Britain for a century until 1947 -- is being conquered by colonial powers all over again. And they are determined to stop it."
How about this: we will keep our tech sites (and our technology) and you can keep your H-1Bs. Sound fair?
Globalization is a two-way street, bitches.
> it is as if their nation --which was ruled by Britain for a century until 1947 -- is being conquered by colonial powers all over again.
How can they dream to be different from almost all other countries?
If you skip the self colonized USA and Cina, everyone else is colonized by the tech giants.
Can they afford the difference?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I mean, maybe there's a smidge of a thing somwhere in here...but let's be real: it's not like India is incapable of rolling their own alternatives. In aggregate, they've got enough programming talent, and it's not like WhatsApp is some unicorn of an app that has impossible-to-replicate requirements. If India wanted to make a legit alternative to Android, WhatsApp, and Youtube, they are not lacking in the human or technical resources to do it within a very short period of time. It might take a little bit for the network effect to kick in, but if North Korea can roll their own Linux distro, it is well within the realm of India to provide competitive applications.
A penny spar'd is twice got.
They are born in filth and die filth.
India, a nation of street shitters.
they are not shy about doing what it takes to get market share. People may even be assassinated if they are perceived to be too big of an obstacle in the expansion of American markets and the establishment of American corporation dominance.
Just look at these things played out in south and latin America during the 20th century. India is an even bigger and more desirable market.
Only then will douche you not be.
A douche they will still be, translocated they has.
"Indians use these services, but profits from these services go overseas. And I just happen to have some wealthy local friends who would like a slice of this pie. And, being a politician, I am playing a patriotism card for them, to pave the way for the popular movement to support local product-to-be."
Nothing wrong or even unusual about it though; it's about as ethical (or unethical, depending on one's PoV) as the "eat locally grown food" slogan. In theory, if they are capable of creating an alternative to (at least some subset of) Google services, some new competition is always good for the market and so good for everyone. But what usually happens is they start applying external pressure by putting services in unequal conditions by subsidizing locals or even doing darker things like throttling traffic at state level or limiting their capability to earn revenue through regulatory measures. Eh, I'm not a globalization fan either, so whatever.
So San Francisco without the expensive real estate and drugs.
... Why as a Chinese or Indian person should I use American companies that provide no benefit over domestic institutions?
They've compromised principles of freedom of speech... kowtowed to the censorship of Tienanmen Square etc... why would I bother with the American version when the domestic version is the same thing?
They hollowed out a lot of the American infrastructure, outsourced like crazy, adopted a lowest common denominator policy regarding how they conduct freedom of speech...
And what did they get for it?
As soon as they're done hollowing out the IP advantage they're going to cut these companies out of the loop and laugh.
Frankly, it can't happen soon enough. The nauseating arrogance out of Google etc can't end soon enough.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Muahahah, see, nobody asks about the USA or USSR when you bring Nazi Germany on the table! It's like shooting 100,000 Iranians and two dentists.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Whoever came up with Yoda's speech pattern really loved postfix notation...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No drugs?
Damn, there's always a catch.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you don't want to buy from abroad, it's time to make your own.
But when I look at the quality we usually get from our outsourced "partners"... I have a hunch I know why you don't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
India leads the world in cold-calling supposed Microsoft support phone calls and virus removal.
Because responding to Windows problems takes a billion-person support team.
Colonialism is an emergent property of power:
https://www.businessinsider.co...
ASCII is no good in India.
aaaaaaa
"Indians use these services, but profits from these services go overseas."
and with the profits of those services they pay the wages of the programmers, which are most likely... in India.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Supporting home team good spirit but might not be the smart bet. Create an environment to compete and develop tech capabilities. Plenty of Indians contributing to the tech as staff and increasingly execs just in overseas companies where investors more confident in parking capital. Impatient populist politics have a fair risk of underperforming yet may still pass.
Begun, the trade wars has. -Yoda
It has been going a lot longer than this with India. India has had a very protectionist economy for decades; it's probably one of the main reasons why China became an economic powerhouse- and India is growing much slower, despite being on better terms with most of the developed nations of the world than China.
India doesn't like foreign companies operating on their seas- they used to keep out grocery stores, department stores from over seas- now they are pushing against IT. I understand why they're doing it, and the history there... but it's shooting themselves in the foot. Once they stop being a protectionist state, they could start to rise in power and eventually challenge the US and China.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
IBM is somewhat huge in India now. I referred to the period of the 1960s, when IBM punished India technologically for their nativism.
The existence of the Indian market for cellphone companies to market to is a boon to frugal cellphone customers here in the US. The Galaxy J3 and J7 are hella-good budget handsets targeted to the India market, but they're darn fine for cheapskates like me in the US. I recently upgraded from a J3 to a J7. The J7 is an awesome piece of gear for $150 when you can find one for that price. The J3 is a lot of goodness for just $60 these days. It's kinda the iPhone SE for the frugal.
8 out of 10 dentists agree that they are glad they weren't the other two dentists.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Ok, we need to stop elevating Yoda's inability to speak proper English.
The truth is, he was good at a lot of things and studied all the time. But during HomeEco and English, he slept. The teachers thought he was "meditating" and "becoming one with the force". He was sleeping!
Does that mean India treats foreign companies worse than China does?
Yes. China requires big foreign businesses to have a local "partner" (and there are ways to weasel out of that, say, by creating a local shell company run by someone you trust), but after that, China is mostly free-wheeling capitalism. There is little bureaucracy, taxes are low, and if you need a favor, the guanxi network makes it clear who you need to bribe. Utilities are rock-solid reliable, cheap, and can be turned on within an hour of your application. Real estate is easy to lease, and building permits are generally approved quickly.
India is far more bureaucratic, you can wait for years for a license, only to find out that you need yet another license. Bribery is less formalized, so a bribe often just begets demands for more. The market is also much more fragmented, with Hindi in the north, Tamil in the south, Bengali in the east, Gujarati in the west, and a dozen more. One good thing that Mao did for China, was force everyone to learn a single standardized language.
GDP per capita in China is 4 times that of India. There are good reasons for that. The Indians need to fix their government.
Ok, we need to stop elevating Yoda's inability to speak proper English.
He speaks English vocabulary with Japanese grammar.
Japanese grammar makes sense to me because I grew up using an RPN calculator.
India, a nation of street shitters [planetcustodian.com].
Kinda like San Francisco is becoming?
Ken
I mean Indian is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't allow double citizenship... how are they going to being back all the brains that left to work for these American companies? Certainly not with these big empty words.
I thought it was Yoddish.
Table-ized A.I.
C'mon, you know the old joke. Press conference in the war room:
Speaker: We're gonna kill 100,000 Iraqi and two dentists.
Journalist: Question: Why the two dentists?
Speaker (to aide): See? Told you nobody's gonna ask about the Iraqi.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There has been no move by the Indian government to levy protectionist policies against Internet giants. What the government is trying to do is push the SaaS companies to host the data out of the Indian territory, something most of the western governments are already doing as part of regulations to some extent or the other. It is a matter of security (There is the other extreme of over policing that we have to worry about). But it does not put the multinationals at any disadvantage as all the companies have to bear the same cost of hosting the data infrastructure within the country. This manipulative agenda is nothing but a cowardly attempt at building pressure on Indian agencies to withdraw and playing the protectionist card.
But on Slashdot you pretty much expect at least one. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Sheldons.
Table-ized A.I.
At first, not. But if cuts are forced, companies would have to remove some of the bloated and excessive layers of CSS and JS libraries to make their sites maintainable with less staff.
There's a lot of fat that can be trimmed. Craigslist runs just fine, and fast, without eye-candy and UI toys. If the H1-B's were cut back, the PHB's would just have to learn to say "no" to me-to gimmicks. (Craigslist is perhaps an extreme case, but something half-way between is possible.)
Table-ized A.I.