India Replaces China as Next Big Frontier for U.S. Tech Companies | Hacker News Reader

India Replaces China as Next Big Frontier for U.S. Tech Companies

nytimes.com

98 pointsjsnathan47 comments

This is great, but I do have some concerns:

- The support for Modi's "Digital India" by Facebook looks like a rebranded Internet.org, which will have serious implications on net neutrality in India, affecting not only the users but also Indian Internet startups.

- Packaging FB/Google/Twitter services for free consumption is unlikely to encourage more content creation from the masses.

- Our IT Act, often in conjunction with our blasphemy and defamation laws, has repeatedly been used to silence citizens who dared to voice their opinions on the Internet. Let us please not be blind consumers of "curated" news tweets. Let us also fight for a right to create content, without being censored, on the Free Web.

"Our IT Act, often in conjunction with our blasphemy and defamation laws, has repeatedly been used to silence citizens who dared to voice their opinions on the Internet. Let us please not be blind consumers of "curated" news tweets. Let us also fight for a right to create content, without being censored, on the Free Web." - Indeed. The media, SV, India and the states are backing Modi's campaign as you've said. I was surprised reading the article below (although not super surprised given the Indian-SV relationship being so strong at the moment) that these more concerning points you touch on haven't been highlighted. Whilst from a technology perspective, this is no doubt a triumph for modi and his team, the true benefit for Indians in India will only be seen when laws are reformed to mirror the freedom the campaign stresses comes out of technology. This is a start, more needs to be done. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34376984

But the Supreme Court of India had squashed the section 66(A) of IT act which was misused to a great extent.

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/what-was-section-66a-749154

I'm still not convinced that the internet.org version of net neutrality violation is a bad thing. If it gives access to several million people even a limited set of services, I think it's still a net positive. Sure Facebook makes money on it but why do I care!

As someone with a startup that operates in both India and China, I completely agree that India will be the next big thing.

Both are messed up in their own ways. The difference is that in India, things are generally getting better. There are exceptions but the trend is moving towards a better internet ecosystem.

China on the other hand is a case of how to F* things up. They modernized their tech backbone so quicky hundreds of millions of people have access to fast (20 mbps+) internet. From there the government has made it virtually impossible to have a global tech focussed startup in China.

Just an example- npm repos are by default blocked in China. Apparently the automatic version control ended up with a number sequence that corresponds in some bamboozled way with a black date that's censored. Government had a hissy fit and therefore NPM is blocked. You have to reconfigure to use Chinese locally hosted repos which is a security risk (Read: IOS malware in Chinese versions of software)

We also got stung with a government request for data on users. Since the law in China changes with every government official you meet, some of the shit they ask for is beyond rediculous. To be fair, it's also happened in India, but the frequency is decreasing.

Cheers for the insight. How does the request for data on users differ between China and India? Am curious.

There really isn't that much difference in the substance of the requests which was not what I expected.

It's more the frequency and how the requests are delivered that is different

As an American who up and moved to China on a whim and more recently started a tech company split between Boston and Shanghai, I can only greet this news with jubilation. Life here over the last two years has become simply impossible. Good luck to you China.

As an Indian, I'm curious. Do you have a blog with your experience in China?

Impossible in what sense?

Care to share more details on how things have changed?

In terms of policy, probably nothing. They have however become more competent, meaning the firewall isn't easy to hop anymore and I went to MIT. I don't know how non-technical foreigners can do anything here.

Every expat in China I have met paid a few dollars a month for a VPN and had as much Facebook, Google, YouTube as the rest of us.

Are you only referring to Great Firewall when you say that "life here is simply impossible"?

I have 4 (ExpressVPN, VyprVPN, StrongVPN, and a fourth I'll never tell anyone where it is). They do not reliably connect, are prone to attacks from the government and even when they do connect, you'll be throttled into oblivion. Before I discovered Shadowsocks (Chinese went to clouds house and made him remove it from github), my VPN would, within 3-5 minutes, be throttled to about 128k average speed. I would be elated if I could get a 1 MBps connection out. And for those wondering, I pay for 200MBps and I do get that in within the Chinese intranet.

You say you went to MIT and don't know how to set up your own VPN server?

Fairly certain the GFC can ferret out any VPN you can set up on your own.

Not exactly. If you use an standard VPN protocol right out of the box (read: OpenVPN), then yes it is automatically blocked. The OpenVPN SSL handshake is different to regular SSL.

There are certain ways you can disguise the traffic and the VPN companies that specialize in China do that- but the GFW is regularly updated so what works today probably won't work next month.

The other issue is that even if you do get a VPN working, they have a tendency to throttle your connection. VPN traffic is quite different to your regular http/https.

Aren't you snarky... Read carefully. I have a fourth. And that wouldn't fix it anyway. They detect it on the protocol level. They posison your DNS.

That's a legitimate question, setting up an OpenVPN server is trivial. I am curious, have you tried using obfusproxy or an alternate way to obfuscate your vpn traffic?

Not yet. Planning to write a small series of posts when I move back, but I do need some time out of this environment before I can judge things with less a biased mentality. Distance is great for that. Will post to HN when I do.

A post about the 2 year cat and mouse game of vpns and gfc is something I'd love to read.

High labor cost and the great firewall

Essentially this. There have been entire weeks where I can't get a connection out I the country and as someone who can't speak Chinese that's a problem. I've learned the language a bit, but there's no way I can achieve business fluency in the time period necessary to be successful.

The reason why the Chinese middle class is booming is the rising labour cost. Without it there would be no demand for the products we westerners want to sell.

>moved to China on a whim

>started a tech company

>split between [two very different countries]

>two years

With all due respect, the problem is most likely a series of poor decisions on your part.

>With all due respect, the problem is most likely a series of poor decisions on your part.

seems like he moved to china a while back and only recently started a tech company. Managing tech companies over several geographical regions is not rare, especially if your business model calls for it.

How exactly did you arrive at the conclusion that it is most likely a series of poor decisions on his part without knowing anything about him or his business?

With all due respect, you have no idea of what you are talking about.

Your comment is off base. You don't know me or what I optimize for in life.

...and xkcd doesn't suck. Randall does something he's passionate about and out its out into the world for millions to see. Good for him.

Do you mind if Inask what you do or have done?

Could you elaborate? Your comment is vague.

holy shit are we the same person?

hit me up at Windows some time. Or wherever.

I'd be down to meet my doppelgänger., but if you want to meet at Window, we are not the same person. haha. How do I get ahold of you after my trip to the states?

Wechats the same as my id here.

Free sounds good, but of course it isn't really "free", stuff is being built and the people who build it, and the people who makes the parts and so on, are all getting paid. You can't put a billion people online "for free". So who is paying? Obviously the people themselves, eventually. India would be wise to ensure the profits made by American companies are taxed in India. This is the mistake the EU made and why Google, Amazon, Apple et al are laughing all the way to their offshore banks.

That's the mistake that the EU made? Not taxing American companies enough?

Instead of focusing on confiscating wealth from the successful, how about creating a climate where Europeans can create similarly successful businesses?

No, it was allowing companies to play country against country, e.g. the "double Irish" and the "Dutch sandwich"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

There have been some predictions in the last few years that China will peak economically in the near future due to population controls (one-child policy)

http://wallstreetflaneur.com/forget-china-how-population-cha...

The other prediction is that India will become an economic superpower by 2030:

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/india-to-become-economic-s...

I wish they'd talk more about net neutrality at the Facebook Townhall Q&A session that concluded recently.

The implication that it was ever the other way around is baseless. US and India share a primary language. US and China really don't.

Meanwhile in Kashmir, which is an "integral" part of India (apparently) — http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/access-denied-kas...

I was curious so I googled. The ban was lifted. The ban was put into place because people were broadcasting provocative and violent videos showing torture and cutting throats of cows (sacred to Hindus in neighbouring Indian states). Eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzSBk6n1olU

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation...

This is a vague reason. Animal slaughter for food is a common practice world wide. Kashmir isn't the only place where this happens.

Edit — Infact, judging by the dress code, the video you've posted is from somewhere in South India (where internet was not banned)

As an Indian I would say this action by the government was both very unfortunate and very un-pragmatic.

However, it would be worthwhile to note that it was the elected and relatively autonomous state government of Jammu and Kashmir which enforced this ban.

It seems there was a sense of panic in the J&K government because of the recent rise in terrorist attacks, and waving of ISIS flags each Friday in Srinagar. So they thought that some elements - of all shades/religions - might use this occasion to incite communal tensions between the Hindu and Muslim residents of state. Not a reason valid enough IMHO, but worth to note.

Anyways they would be held accountable for this in the next elections, so let's hope it never happens again.

Agree with you 100%

This is great.

Also, worth noting that tech is seemingly the one area of regulation / legislation that sees swift and decisive action in favor of the average Indian. But that's due to the sheer noise generated by the empowered digital Indian on such issues.

- Huge pushback on OTT regulation by TRAI (India's FCC) http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/trai-seek...

- Repeal of Section 66A http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-32029369 etc.

"Rape fear keeps US students out of India" --Nancy Powell http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rape-fear-keeps-US-...

Me and 2 friends have spent the last 8 months building an Android app, just launched in India and are getting good traction. Anyone have recommendations for VC's/angels - either in the region or interested in it?

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