Skip to main content

Is this end of an era?

If you look at the M & A activity in the past few months, it seems like an era of independent free internet is slowly coming to an end.

Linked In was bought in by Microsoft, Yahoo an iconic brand of the nineties was sold out to Verizon and Monster another survivor of the dot com bust of nineties finally went to hammer. It seems as if the surviving spirit of these and many like them is waning. Look at how Uber, although now a major player but once a struggling start up, conceded defeat in China as players with deep pockets closed ranks to check it in.

Indeed it seems as happens in a true capitalist world, the big boys with deep pockets and perpetual line of credit seems to be showing who the boss is, with curbs on smaller different players. Take the case of Go Javas, a logistics firm, which was supposed to be bought by Snapdeal but once talks failed, again supposedly Go Javas lost the e-commerce giant's account.

So, where does future lie for upcoming tech firms? Most of the innovative start ups in a similar space have one thing in common. Their investors are almost all the same. In this game, it seems they have been risking their freedom and their enterprise as others sit back to pounce at the opportune moment to buy it all in.

Comments

Also read

Toddy to Tequila Review: How Does Alcohol Tell the Story of India?

What if the history of India could be read through a glass? In Toddy to Tequila , Sandhya Mulchandani turns alcohol into an unexpected historical guide, moving from Vedic rituals and indigenous brews to Mughal courts, colonial trade and modern distilleries. Her subject is never simply drinking. It is faith, pleasure, prohibition, commerce, class, power and the people caught between them. Have you ever wondered what your drink says about the country you live in? Perhaps you are sitting somewhere with a drink in front of you. Nothing dramatic. No Mughal durbar. No colonial club with men in linen suits pretending the weather is not trying to kill them. You might be holding whisky. Or feni. Or beer. Perhaps a cocktail with a name that requires three attempts before you can pronounce it without embarrassing yourself. Perhaps it is toddy, poured from a humble container that has travelled a very long distance from the fashionable cocktail menus of modern India. Now ask yourself a sligh...

Did You Ever Love Me? Book Review: Can Rithvik singh turn heartbreak into a homecoming?

Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...

Does India need communal parties?

I think, it was Tan's post on this blog itself, Republic Day Event, where this question was raised. My answer. YES. we need communal parties even in Independent, Secular India. Now let me take you, back to events before 1947. When India was a colony of the British Empire. The congress party, in its attempt to gain momentum for the independence movement, heavily used Hinduism, an example of which is the famous Ganesh Utsav held in Mumbai every year. Who complains? No one. But at that time, due to various policies of the congress, Muslims started feeling alienated. Jinnah, in these times, got stubborn over the need of Pakistan and he did find a lot of supporters. Congress, up till late 1940's never got bothered by it. And why should we? Who complains? No one. But there were repercussions. The way people were butchered and slaughtered during that brief time when India got partitioned, was even worse than a civil war scenario. All in the name of religion. And there indeed was cr...