Now
Internet access remained a challenge in India for more than 20 years. We never really made it to the wired broadband era. High costs and limited access to desktop connectivity meant that the user base in India stayed low (compared to potential) through the first two Web cycles. It was only with Jio’s launch and the availability of cheap smartphones that Internet usage exploded in India. Today, thanks to competition, wired and wireless connectivity is easily available and at very affordable prices. This is what has spurred the Internet startups even as the absolute number of transacting users is limited by income. Capital is available in plenty as even a 50-100 million consumer base puts India among the larger Internet markets globally.
There are three types of startups blossoming in India: the B2C/D2C companies which seeks to deliver everything to us from anywhere in the country, B2B SaaS companies riding the shift to the cloud, and others solving problems in various verticals from agriculture to education to health (what I call the *tech – “startech” – companies). 90% or more of the companies will fail as is the nature of entrepreneurship. But the innovators who succeed will transform industries and individual lives, and create enough wealth to keep the investment cycle going.
Having seen the early days of the Internet, I sense a similar excitement with Web3. The crypto foundations are enabling a decentralised future built on the blockchain. Even as much of the attention is focused on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (and more recently, the sharp fall in their value), there are many other applications being built. This is the “whole wide world” of Web3. From land records to loyalty programs, from financial inclusion to fashion provenance – the applications of the “chain” are many. It is in the world that for the first time India-domiciled companies and entrepreneurs have an opportunity to get in at ground zero and compete on a level playing field. It is this world that the Indian government policies, taxation and regulation is hurting. Entrepreneurs and investors don’t like uncertainty and that is exactly what is happening in India’s Web3 space. Given a history of “retrospective” actions and taxation by Indian governments, it is the rare brave entrepreneur who will create a Web3 company based in India. And when capital moves, so do people – and so does eventual wealth creation.
This is the fork in the road: the 1995 moment in India’s Web3 future. No bureaucrat or government policy maker whose tenure is measured in months will be bold enough to create a welcoming framework for Web3 startups. And so Indian entrepreneurs will simply go to Dubai or Switzerland or whichever country welcomes them. For once, can India’s government do the right thing – which is to simply promise freedom to entrepreneurs, and a freedom that no future retro policy will take away? Because Web3 promises to remake our tomorrow in ways we cannot even imagine.
