Of course, it would have been impossible to predict the effects of the internet’s presence in our lives. But in calling for everyone to get on Facebook, I should have made a better stab at guessing what could go wrong if we all did. What would be the implications for privacy if we were all using Facebook on our phones — how much could this one service glean about you by being in your pocket all the time? How would Facebook’s ability to bring people together play out in the world — would it be a bigger boon to freedom fighters battling repressive governments, or would it, say, help aggrieved Americans attack their Capitol? What would the implications for speech and media be if this single company became a central clearinghouse in the global discourse?

These are difficult questions, some of them impossible to answer now, let alone then. But I should at least have thought to ask them.

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Another reason for the disquiet is that Westland has tremendous heritage. It started life as Affiliated East West Press —a distributor of books—back in 1962. It has since been a distributor of books, a publisher and a book store operator. The long years in the trade means tremendous goodwill across the publishing ecosystem. It was acquired by the Tatas in 2013 and by Amazon in 2017, but is still led by Gautam Padmanabhan, son of the founder, KS Padmanabhan, an icon of Indian publishing. So it was one of India’s oldest independent publisher and retained elements of that spirit even as it came under the ownership of larger corporations. Its editor V.K. Karthika is well regarded in the industry and inspired loyalty among staff as well as authors. With Amazon’s backing, in recent years, the publisher could also afford to be aggressive with advances.

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In their quest for streaming domination, Netflix engaged in what I called the ‘Uber cash incineration strategy.’ This strategy consists of tapping low-cost external funding sources – both debt and equity – to juice the value proposition of service beyond what existing and new users pay. The idea is that by being so star-spangled awesome, everyone and their dog will become a regular (or subscribing) user. Doing so is a winner-takes-all approach because the firm with the deepest pockets is the one who can offer the outsized benefit the longest and thereby hoover up all the customers. Once a platform has all the users it can then up its fees since there are no competitors left.

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