Maybe we are underestimating the power of their relations with the present government, in terms of an ally that can be used to threaten or harm competitors both Indian and foreign.

Just like TikTok can be banned, other services can eventually be banned too, under the garb of nationalism or whatever and India can potentially go the full China way with Reliance as the Indian Baidu or Alibaba, or at least as a major rent seeker in the ecosystem.

With enough protectionism a local company need not try to be a quality alternative to FB or Google.

For example of some Indian Government protectionist whimsy that affected Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart take a look at [1]. Which 'coincidentally' came the same week that Reliance had announced plans to launch an ecommerce website in India [2].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-com...

[2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/asia-s-richest-man-o...