On a recent busy Friday morning, I hopped into my cab on my way to the office. I was about to isolate myself by plugging my ears with an audiobook. Right about that time, I heard a voice in Hindi, a local Indian language, giving directions to my Uber driver. It made me pause and ponder on how ubiquitous the technical solutions have become. A large section of society has learnt to start carrying these powerful devices along. And this change alone has made some complex businesses more accessible.
Many, especially Apple, mock Android for being “a cesspool of cheap, sluggish devices”. But it is Android that has put this change on the fast track. I spent my hour-long ride by being a lot more attentive than isolated. I decided to look around to the individuals, running small and medium businesses, using digital solutions. Almost everyone was flaunting some form of an Android device.
Uber drivers for managing their rides and the routes. Small shop owners for accepting digital payments. Delivery-only restaurants for accepting orders. Food delivery agents running around on bikes to find the next order to be delivered. Part-time “service experts” on the look-out for their next housekeeping jobs. And many more individual or small group ventures.
There is no doubt that the always-connected1 and accessible Android devices have enabled all these use cases. The two combined have also managed to pull millions of more people into the digital age. Sure, iOS might be the more secure, more private platform that’s better for everyone. But it is not for everyone because it is not affordable to everyone.
We need to credit Google for fostering a platform that attracts more and more OEMs. This makes the platform a lot more usable for the majority section of the world. And they continue to lessen the needs of the platform, recently with the introduction of the Go edition. No doubt, it suits and assists their business model. However, it doesn’t matter. They do that so, in their own words, “even the most affordable Android smartphones are as sweet as can be”. I’ve come to believe that. Kudos!
Yes, let’s make the technology affordable for more people so that they too can benefit from the new-age advances. And while we do that, let’s also make the same affordable technology powerful. Because when we do that, we open more ways the people can earn, can learn, can connect, can be part of the world.
There is a parallel story of how a business tycoon reshaped the Indian telecom market with his launch of aggressively priced mobile data plans.↩