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Competition and Platforms

Let me take this opportunity to welcome IBS Hyderabad MBA Class of 2026.

I had the pleasure of sharing insights about my department of marketing and strategy over last decade including but not limited to the research, teaching and consulting work done by my extraordinary colleagues.

Looking forward to an enriching journey together. #October2025

DTW

During the Week, Uber was granted the licence under the Delhi government’s app-based premium bus aggregator scheme thus allowing the company to start offering bus shuttle services in Delhi. As platforms become successful, they would like to evolve into Super Apps to get more engagements for their multiple sides. Take for example, Uber which now plans to be a super app by adding planes, trains and rental cars to its platform. They have had vision of being “The Transportation App“ for the world. They have added an additional Uber Explore option in selected US markets to allow users to even make dinner reservations and make recommendations for the popular tourist destinations.

The Uber’s move at consolidating its influence in the transportation sector may raise the shackles of organisations protesting against the monopolistic tendencies of digital platforms and imploring the government/regulators to curb the anti-competitive practices of big digital enterprises. Recently , the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) wrote to the Corporate Affairs Ministry, expressing members’ fear that the draft Digital Competition Bill will have adverse effects on Indian startups and other digital enterprises specially as we are a growing economy and have just started the phase of receiving benefits from the growing internet penetration.

The draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024 (DCB2024) is based on the report of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on ‘Anti-Competitive Practices by Big Tech Companies’ which has identified ten anti-competitive practices :

1. anti-steering provisions;

2. platform neutrality/ self-preferencing ;

3. adjacency/bundling and tying;

4. data usage (use of non-public data);

5. pricing/deep discounting;

6. exclusive tie-ups;

7. search and ranking preferencing;

8. restricting third-party applications;

9. advertising policies; and

10. acquisitions and mergers.

In fact, the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL) took note of the different approaches adopted internationally in jurisdictions like European Union, United Kingdom, Germany, United States of America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and China to determine the applicability of ex- ante competition instruments and concluded that the DCB should apply to an inclusive and pre-identified list of Core Digital Services (“CDS”) that are susceptible to market concentration and anti-competitive behaviour.

The current list of CDS’ identified in the DCB comprises: (i) online search engines; (ii) online social networking services; (iii) video-sharing platform services; (iv) interpersonal communications services; (v) operating systems; (vi) web browsers; (vii) cloud services; (viii) advertising services; and (ix) online intermediation services. Further, each enterprise engaged in the business of CDS and meeting the financial and user thresholds in each of the preceding three financial years would be considered as a Systemically Significant Digital Enterprise (“SSDE”):

Now, why is the identification of CDS and SSDE important from the competition point of view? Simply because platforms gain extraordinary power through user side network effects and commodification of supplier and use access to cheap capital to execute Predatory Pricing and Vertical Integration. Governments must maintain oversight over platforms by continuously evaluating the threat to Customer Welfare and work towards Preservation of Open Markets.

BigTech specially Facebook and Google which have faced serious anti-trust charges have also not shied away from bolstering their advocacy and PR arsenal. Imagine Facebook hiring former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg as head of its global affairs and communications team in 2018 and then using his well-placed expertise to advise Facebook on how to keep the regulators away.

More importantly , the government’s concern should be reducing the threat to Customer Welfare AND Preservation of Open Markets. This would require consolidated action from governments across the world as a splintered internet and/or haphazard approach to BigTech regulation would allow them play governments against each other. They might also use the regulatory arbitrage as it already exists in financial world to create safe havens with no regulatory oversight.

I wrote a three-part series on Platform and Anti-trust. You may want to read Size does Matter, 800 Pounds Gorilla Unleashed and Taming 800 Pounds Gorilla!

Amongst other news on the first and second order effects of BigTech on multiple industries, my daughter Aru Bisht reported her first story for NDTV as an intern. She filed a report on the adverse impact of OTT platforms, Elections and missing Blockbusters on single screen theatres in Telangana.

You can watch the video report by clicking on the link below.

You may also want to read Aru’s detailed analysis in her newsletter

In Search of BlockBuster

OTW

Over the Weekend, I reread parts of The Curse of Bigness by Tim Wu, one of the foremost thinker on anti-trust where he discusses increasing economic concentration across the world. Monopolies across sectors have amassed tremendous power - economic and market. They have become too big and have been accused of using this scale to suppress competition, squeeze suppliers and possibly over charge customers. I am a huge fan of his book The Attention Merchant which is a seminal work to understand the role of BigTech to change our consumption behaviour.

Since its inception, the attention industry, in its many forms, has asked and gained more and more of our waking moments, albeit always, in exchange for new conveniences and diversions, creating a grand bargain that has transformed our lives. In the process, as a society and individually, we have accepted a life experience that is in all of its dimensions—economic, political, social, any way you can think of—mediated as never before in human history.
Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants

This trend towards attention economy coupled with the extraordinary financial strength of the BigTech has caused concerns about their unbridled power and their ability/intent to use this influence for common good of the society. Like Tim Wu says- Some of these companies invite their partners/competitors for Lunch and then have them for Dinner. Just ask Ilya Sutskever

I Love You

Shailendra

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