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Is Facebook’s Free Basics the Jio 3.0?

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On 22nd April 2020, Reliance Industries Limited , Jio Platforms Limited and Facebook Inc. announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of ₹ 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms at 9.99% equity stake on a fully diluted basis.

Facebook currently has over 700 million Indian users on three of it’s platforms – Facebook.com, Instagram & WhatsApp; while  Jio provides connectivity to 388 million-plus subscribers in India. That is why this strategic investment by Facebook in Jio is talked about as probably the largest strategic investment for a minority stake anywhere in the world. To understand this deal better & the impact of this deal in Indian telecom & digital space, let’s break it into 4 parts.

1. Free Basics – Facebook’s Failed Dream

This is not the first time Facebook has expressed it’s interest in India’s massive & rapidly growing digital market. Earlier on 10th Feb. 2015, Facebook had made it’s interest in India evident by launching internet.org in India in partnership with Reliance Mobile.

Through this launch, Facebook wanted to provide free access to basic online services in India to get millions of Indians online. This ‘Free Basics‘ campaign failed due to digital & telecom activists & public’s argument about the intricacies of the country’s telecoms policy & net neutrality drafted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). You can read more about the arguments & concerns about internet.org on Nikhil Pahwa (Founder & Editor, Medianama)’s post where he outlines his reservations about what Facebook was proposing.

2. Jio 1.0 – The Smart Gamble

While Free Basics & Net Neutrality was dominating the telecom debate, parallelly Jio was working on launching their 4G Mobile Data services in India. Jio soft launched on 27th December 2015 with a beta for its partners and employees, and became publicly available on 5th September 2016.

During the Reliance AGM 2016, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and MD, Reliance Industries, dedicated Jio to India & 120 crore Indians. He spoke at length about the Digital Revolution, Jio Network, Jio Applications & Launch Tariffs. The Jio services were officially rolled-out for all on 5th September 2016 – under the name of ‘Welcome Offer’ – free to use until December 31, 2016. Jio later extended the welcome offer till March 2017. This bold, smart & strategic move by Jio was the beginning of disruption in Indian telecom industry & the penetration of internet to grassroots.

After Jio’s freebies, incumbent operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and others approached TRAI in Oct. 2016 against free call service being offered by Jio, calling the tariff plan predatory, discriminatory and non-compliant to present rules. TRAI ruled in favour of Jio stating that tariff plans of the new player (Jio) are compliant to existing rules and not discriminatory. This resulted in other telecom operators offering discriminatory tariff to individual customers within the same class to retain those customers who were using MNP to port to Jio. After Jio’s complaint, TRAI barred discriminatory tariffs to same set of subscribers.

3. Jio 2.0 – Let’s make some money!

With freebies after freebies, in 2017 Jio started charging it’s users with plan starting at ₹ 309 (Offering 1 GB data per day with a validity of 84 days). This resulted in data war between all telecom operators & customers were benefiting the most of it. In 2018, Jio had around 280 Mn users & it was the only profitable telecom operator in India. In July 2018, Jio had announced plans to launch Jio Fiber, which was commercially rolled out on 5th September 2019. Mukesh Ambani in Reliance Industries’ August 2019 AGM launched – Jio Giga Fiber, Jio set top box, and First Day First show in a major digital push to make Jio India’s largest network.

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When more & more no. of users joined this digital revolution in India, telecom operators started increasing their tariffs. In Oct. 2019, Jio went back on its three-year-old promise to keep ‘Free Lifetime Voice Calls’ and started charging for outgoing calls made to rival networks – Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL – at 6 paise/minute.

In Dec. 2019, Jio increased its tariff by up to 40%.

In Feb 2020, the Big 3 telcos – Jio, Airtel & Vodafone, appeared to have buried their past differences & opposed Trai’s tariff plan transparency.

4. Jio 3.0 – Risk of Monopoly?

Jio’s acceptance of Facebook’s friend request is exciting, but there is a risk of a monopoly! There is a fear that Jio-3.0 could be FreeBasics-2.0.

This deal is going to unlock mutual interests of Facebook & Reliance with Facebook dominating the messenger platform (WhatsApp), Social Network (Facebook & Instagram) & Payment Space (WhatsApp) while Reliance dominating Telecom Space (Jio), Marketplace (Reliance Retail, Jio Mart, Ajio), Entertainment (JioCinema, Saavn, JioTV). This deal puts them in a much better & competitive position compared to their rivals like Amazon, Walmart (FlipKart), PayTm, Google Pay etc. Clearly it’s a WIN-WIN deal for both RIL & Facebook.

The big question is – is this deal going to be re-entry of FreeBasics in India & Jio going back to Jio 1.0 to offer free internet services & making money while charging users data pricing differentiation between those companies which are on board with Jio 3.0 & Facebook and those which are not?

Didn’t realise that it has become such a long post so ending it on a lighter note with my tweet from 2016.

Let me know what you think about this deal in comments below.

How to try ‘The New Facebook’ – web interface with dark mode

Facebook New Updates in Digital

Back at F8 2019, Facebook announced the social network plans to push out a massive redesign called ‘The New Facebook’. It’s an user interface (UI) update which places a bigger emphasis on Groups and Events – two of the biggest reasons people visit Facebook on a daily basis.

The Android app started receiving the new interface almost immediately in 2019. For the past few days, Facebook has started to roll out ‘The New Facebook’ for desktop for selected users and along with it comes a new dark mode option. Many users have reported that they got prompted by Facebook to try out the new interface.

After clicking on Try it, the features are highlighted.

Once the user clicks on Next, they get asked if they’d like to use the white or dark layout.

The choice is also available under the quick settings accessible from the top right avatar.

Once you switch to dark mode, this is how the new facebook.com looks like.

Some of the other highlights of the new UI are :

  • It rearranges and simplifies Facebook’s interface, makes it easier to open Messenger conversations, and drops in new icons and buttons in header bar.
  • There is bigger emphasis on Groups and Events – two of the biggest reasons people visit Facebook on a daily basis.
  • I observed that the News Feed is featured way less in The New Facebook.
  • ‘Sponsored’ feature has become more prominent on Top Right side.
  • Position of ‘Shortcut’ & ‘Explore’ have been swapped to give more emphasis on Groups, Events & Marketplace.

If you do not like the new Facebook interface, you can switch to the classic Facebook anytime. Just click or tap your profile picture in the upper-right of the page to open the quick menu, then select “Switch to Classic Facebook.” Facebook actually shows you how to do this when you first turn on the new design, but it’s worth pointing out in case you forgot or didn’t catch where the setting was.