Google Invests $4.5B in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms | Hacker News Reader

Google Invests $4.5B in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms

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12 pointsjmsflknr4 comments

So out of $10 billion that they announced to invest in India in next five to seven years, 45% of it is in Jio? Jio is already on the way to monopolize the telecom sector and with all the investments Jio Platforms has got in past four months, this doesn't look good for Indian tech sector.

I agree. If this trend of pouring of billions of $$$s of Big Tech money into the Jio platform continues, it won't be long until Jio becomes the monopoly in the country, especially given the founder's proximity to the current administration. [0]

And imo, even though this is bad for overall competition and culture of innovation in the country, this is a smart move by both Facebook and Google, especially given the recent backlash against Chinese tech and software, which have come to dominate India's tech scene; Indian government quite recently banned almost all the popular China-origin apps [1] and there is a growing anti-China sentiment in the country. I feel there has never been a better opportunity for Jio to step up its game and fill in the void left by the government-mandated bans, and from that perspective, these investments from the Big Tech firms make sense.

[0] https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/contracts-...

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/29/india-bans-tiktok-dozens-o...

Yes this is the way for these companies to enter into India's emerging market, but it's getting worse for the end consumer. A lot of "Tech Gurus" in India are suggesting Jio apps as a replacement for the banned Chinese ones (to ride the wave of nationalism). But the problem is, Jio Apps have some of the worst privacy policies I have come across (even worse than their Chinese counter parts in some cases). Users in India are not aware of this fact. It will be too late and everyone will be locked into Jio platform ecosystem before the masses realize it (think of something like Cambridge Analytica scandal at India's scale with one of the Jio Apps as a platform).

> this doesn't look good for Indian tech sector.

How this is not better than no money coming into the Indian tech sector?

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