Despite its relatively limited user base in Pakistan, Twitter holds an outsize importance in the policy sphere. Pretty much every issue and non-issue is hotly debated, with some threads almost as long as books, by people looking to do some quick intellectual vomiting. But instead of a diversity in opinion, you end up seeing the same two boilerplate takes that more or less everyone subscribes to, no matter how reductive.

One such post that attracted Pakistan’s technologically inclined Twitterati the past week was by a former Goldman Sachs and Andreseen Horowitz executive in India on the JIO effect: how Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate’s bet on providing free, and subsequently subsidised, internet led to a digital boom in the country.

In a matter of four years, the company went from zero to 400 million customers — a kind of scale that’s impossible to even think about.

As usual, parallels (and the lack thereof) started coming in along with laments on how such initiatives are blocked here by the government, thus putting at rest any realistic hopes of transitioning the economy towards digital channels. At the first look, there is certainly truth in that as our administrations, one after another, have made it their mission to make sure the country remains as unfeasible as humanly possible to undertake any innovative business. You don’t even have to dig that deep. Just a cursory look at the news for the past few months would be enough. From bans and unbans on TikTok and other streaming platforms to the social media rules, there are plenty of examples.

The debate on technology in Pakistan has never been nuanced. Our mindset has prevented the shaping up of any unique local identity and most regulations are driven by the fear of missing out

In that rightful criticism of the regulatory environment here, a lot of us try to look for examples from elsewhere and surely the likes of JIO are shiny ones. But let’s scratch the surface a little and you begin to see the fault in those role models.

While the Indian telecom’s growth was indeed extraordinary, a lot of it has to do with classic crony capitalism — for Ambani is known to have very close ties with Narendra Modi.

For the uninitiated, it’s not only in the tech arena that the Reliance group has benefited heavily by being close to the powers that be. It also won the country’s largest defence contract in history, the infamous Rafael deal, thanks in large part to a cosy relationship with the government.

Even if one ignores this political economy and purely sticks to the markets, JIO shouldn’t really be an inspiration. It has been widely credited with destroying competition in the industry — a negative outcome as per Econ 101. The company began with an initial investment of $25 billion and bled heavily to gain that share. Earlier this year, it again went on an insane fundraising streak that saw inflows of over $21bn from virtually every bigshot there is — from Facebook and Amazon to Silverlake and KKR.

Unfortunately, the debate on tech in Pakistan has never panned out in a nuanced manner. Our follower mindset has prevented the shaping up of any unique local identity and most innovations and progressive regulations are driven by a fear of missing out. In fact, there seems to be no in-between. On the one hand, the government keeps talking about bringing the global giants. On the other hand, it keeps issuing out-of-touch regulations.

Meanwhile, the techno-liberals can’t shut up about the virtues of technology and rather ironically even some of the civil rights groups, which are otherwise all for keeping power in check, enjoy uncomfortably close ties with Big Tech.

It’s no wonder then that the issue of net neutrality never got many takers here. Unlike India where the netizens demanded for and earned equal access and rates for every ISP, global giants in Pakistan have found the playing field much to their advantage. You just have to take a look at your own telecom network and whether it provides free data for platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter. What it does is give the well-endowed companies to distort the market and erect barriers to entry for other players.

Again, this is not to say that unlimited data for selected apps doesn’t help expand digital connectivity. In fact, just free WhatsApp alone can have significant spill-over effects with respect to the overall economy, be it through the growing e-commerce on the platform or the mobile bill savings to ride-hailing contractors of Bykea or Careem.

However, let’s not get carried away and lose sight of the increasingly pervasive nature of technology platforms, which parts of the world have learned the hard way. Indeed, there should be connectivity for all. But are these giants really the panacea to all our problems? Iran can be a classic case in point, which despite sanctions from the United States and much of the technology platforms blocked, has done a fairly good job in promoting the digitisation wave.

It’s high time we realised that Pakistan’s transition towards a digital economy could only be possible through forging our own unique identity instead of blanket bans or deregulations. Branchless banking was a great example on that front and look at the progress made since.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, December 21st, 2020