Myanmar was off the grid for decades, is catching up fast
techinasia.com
techinasia.com
Most of the cell towers and infrastructure has been built in 2 years - it's been incredibly fast. Once the telco licenses were awarded, the two telcos (Ooredoo and Telenor) didn't waste any time revving up ops.
Together with Android devices falling rapidly in price, it has been a complete transformation in connectivity.
There are some really positive outcomes, like a group of CS students in Yangon being able to follow Harvard CS MOOC's, and a lot of people working as devs being able to learn from stackoverflow etc. Internet connectivity will empower people to educate themselves but it will take some time.
In terms of commercial opportunities for tech companies, I'm not sure they exist in the scale the article depicts. There are between 50 and 60 million people, but most of the population live in the countryside, with very little spending power. The total market size for internet connected people with some (not very much) spending power is probably around 10 million.
The main challenges are with governance, and physical infrastructure, which are decades behind where they need to be for a functional country, and these are things internet connectivity unfortunately can't fix.
Of course, Facebook is well positioned to take advantage of this, given that it is well adapted to mobile. But so are others, and there's no reason to think that Facebook's monopoly will be permanent. Facebook has the advantage of being the first entrant in an entirely new market, and they have the branding muscle and name recognition to enforce a temporary monopoly. Long term, though (as the article itself acknowledges by pointing to the prevalence of Viber), there is no reason to believe that Facebook's will have a sustainable monopoly over Burmese cell phone users. If something else comes along that handles the use cases that Facebook does, but even better, then people will switch to that.
Leaving Facebook aside for a moment, can you perhaps elaborate on how daily life has changed, now that cell phones have gone from something solely reserved for the elite to a commodity that pretty much everyone can access, if not own?
Two scenes stood out to me. The first was of a young, city-educated shop owner who had a laptop and internet. Some of the other villagers came over as he showed them pictures of 'nice ladies' and played music for them. Ever the businessman he offered to download ten tracks for them in exchange for some meat.
The other scene was a merchant passing through and selling plastic bowls and such, but also 'dumb' cellphones. Cue a scene of three guys excitedly comparing ringtones.
What amazed me was not just the rapid technological progress in this village, but how different individuals made extremely different jumps. One guy was excited about phones with fancy ringtones, but the other, in that same small village was already 'facebooking' with a Chinese girl on his laptop.
What strikes me is that the way 'we' think about something like facebook is very different from this villager (and I suppose the other villagers in due time).
For many of us, Facebook is a product that developed over time and one that exists in an ecosystem of social platforms and has a dynamic with its users. We remember older, often national social networks, fondly or otherwise, we discuss the pro's and cons of current social networks, we have already invested time and content into these social networks, and these products have shaped us and vice versa.
But for places like this village, Facebook is a brand-new thing that just appeared with no history or context. They might have no knowledge at all of how Facebook 'should' be used (although I suspect this knowledge travels quickly). Hell, even many of those who grew up with Facebook have that one older family member who somehow thinks each of your posts is meant for them and they respond and like them all!
It's a bit like the difference between dating someone you grew up with and a 'mail-order bride (groom?)' from a different culture. The dynamic is entirely different, and I find this fascinating. I wonder if any research is being done into this.
I guess this is all just a really long-winded way of basically repeating what you said. But it's early and I'm having a coffee and I don't want to start working yet... Apologies!
It is a really (really!) small place, really nothing modern anywhere and dusty. But apparently cars are cheap, so it is chock full of fresh looking big cars (like SUVs).
I also saw a tesla there, apparently the owner owned some business and had it imported.
I was very surprised that many of the Buddhist monks you see walking around carry smart-phones and tablets! It threw me for a loop when I saw a monk inside a pagoda playing Candy Crush on his iPad.
Edit: one of the monks on his iPad http://s11.postimg.org/y473yqjk3/12486068_10205302771587155_...
It's more expensive than a lot of the rest of Southeast Asia but I still managed on less than $50/day (staying in hostel dorms).
Doesn't that just mean it's becoming like every other country? Even America has those. Perhaps the internet is bound to end up controlled by laws just like the real world.
All you have to do is prove you failed at attempts to contact via traditional methods, which isn't too hard.
My take on the internet is that it is an invention of DARPA, a military organization. That makes everything you say/do on it public, even if (temporarily) obfuscated by encryption schemes. Don't like it? roll your own BATMAN mesh network. Otherwise, sit up straight when you're being watched.
The change is very quick as you mentioned. The SIM cards became so cheap and the speed became much faster than before. So, even to local people like us, it's amazing.
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