Promise
In the early days of the Internet, its promise was thought to be in democratising access to information. No longer was one limited by geography and what was available in the vicinity of where one lived. What I did with IndiaWorld was something similar. Indian newspapers and magazines would take 7-10 days to reach the US. The Internet enabled me to publish news and make it available to anyone with an Internet connection the next instant. Then, entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos realised that as they made information about products (books to begin with) available, they could also build a distribution system to ship products anywhere and drive ecommerce. Later, came the social networks and OTT platforms and myriad other ideas building on the foundation of the Internet. While many ideas failed, entrepreneurs learnt rapidly from both successes and failures of others to keep improving the technology (“know-how”) and make lives better. The early pioneers of the Internet could not have imagined today’s world – and it has been less than three decades.
When I returned from the US in 1992 to set up base as an entrepreneur in India, it was very difficult to get new computers in India – one had to import them. I remember importing a Sun Microsystems Unix workstation – I had to classify my company as a software export entity and create a room in the office as a “bonded warehouse”. The computer could not be moved out of that room and was subject to inspection by a government official at any time. Import duties were high. Once when I had bought a new iPhone in the US, I was stopped by customs officials who assessed its value to be higher than what I was allowed and therefore had to pay duty.
For a while, I thought we had gone past that era. But when the core beliefs are not about economic freedom but of economic control, the next bad regulation is not far away. Sometimes, it is not just the regulation, but the threat of impending controls and constraints that kills entrepreneurship.
Policymakers would do well to remember Milton Friedman: “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”
Web3 is a new world that’s getting created. No one even knows how it is going to play out. Cryptocurrencies, DeFi and NFTs are just the start. Despite the recent ‘crypto winter’, there is massive capital flowing into the space attracting the smartest minds to solve the toughest problems. New infrastructure to support Web3 is being built and improved. Entrepreneurs are thinking about problems to solve and investors are willing to back many of them. For once, India was not a laggard. But that is going to change. Once again, Indian policymakers are killing a nascent industry. None of them will pay the price; that will be borne by billions of Indians who will be unable to benefit easily from the promise of new innovations. Phrases like ‘Digital India’ have little meaning when the real enablers are blocked.
