But that doesn't make his server costs go away. And they must own at least another phone otherwise they wouldn't be able to use WhatsApp Web. So they are probably not as poor as you think.
If it were just the opening part of the article which gave me pause, I would agree with you.
But the other parts?
Its very hard, even when I am trying to give him the benefit of doubt, to devise a sufficient and forgiving explanation for his behavior. Unless you just ignore entire chunks of what transpired.
He used those people to troll his competitors. It sounds like someone realized that he could flash a laser, and make a group of camps walk over someone else's flower bed.
Its hard to defend that, and the implication that has for his view on the people he aimed like water from a hose.
For the record, I've put some time into knowing what I know about India, the Indian telecom industry, Jio and Jio pricing. I'll say that my educated guess should be pretty close to the mark, but I will change my position if a contradicting piece of information is shown.
"he comes across as lacking humanity. Especially as the people using Jio phones would be the kind of people who are not rich or well off."
Would you say the same about apps that serve video ads in order to unlock something in app? Or contests that requests tweets for entry? Or bootstrapped companies with "buy now" websites that only lead to an email signup?
"he doesn’t realize that he is manipulating people less informed and weaker than him"
Manipulating seems like a strong word. No one was forced to tweet, this isn't a matter of life or death. (It's for getting on WhatsApp after all). More importantly, I don't think anyone that tweeted really cared about the contents of the tweet.
Challenges or re-tweet requests are assumed in good faith or in the context of a (relatively) symmetrical/fair market system.
I’m trying to give him good faith and it’s coming up short.
I don’t think he is malicious, just not used to thinking at the scale of humanity he was dealing with.
By the way - this is also an excellent example of how good net neutrality laws help customers.
I am sure JIO would love to block whatsapp.
Actually - how is Jio blocking Whatsapp?
That’s a more important question.
Jio launches a pretty ambitious phone network and decimated the competition.
Do note thought that they are considered to be really bad competitors to go up against. They almost always have a focus on good ultra competitive pricing and ways to extract extra money from the consumer.
But they are very actively investing in broadband content to drive use of their network.
Probably just a lot of people shrugging and saying "I guess this guy doesn't want us abusing his free service for our own gain" and "it was fun while it lasted".
All indications pointed towards all these people using his service in bad faith. I went to his website and it's obviously meant for cross-browser testing, not spoofing your user agent, circumventing regional restrictions or whatever it was preventing them from accessing Whatsapp directly.
So I'm pretty sure what they want is to access the Whatsapp web interface and use Browserly for user agent spoofing, circumventing geographic blocking or some kind of blocking on their phones like a 0.0.0.0 entry for whatsapp.com in the hosts file. Either way it's a major dick move if you ask me, especially when there is no shortage of services built for this exact purpose.
There would definitely be outrage.
As other people have said, he comes across as lacking humanity. Especially as the people using Jio phones would be the kind of people who are not rich or well off.
In fairness to the person, he could just be clueless and doesn’t really think of the people trying to use his service as people.
Hmm. That makes him sound worse.
I know a friend who thinks like that, And Is not a bad person....
I don’t know - this guy comes across as if he doesn’t realize that he is manipulating people less informed and weaker than him like someone orchestrating ants into following sugar.