Myanmar was off the grid for decades, is catching up fast

https://www.techinasia.com/myanmar-internet-revolution-startups

by williswee • 11 years ago

51 23 11 years ago

tristanj• 11 years ago

Related discussion from a couple months ago: Millions of Facebook users have no idea they're using the Internet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995043

quanticle2• 11 years ago

I think the headline does a poor job of capturing the content of the article. The real story here is summed up by the graph that shows Myanmar's cell phone penetration going from 12.8% to 60.7% in the span of two years. That's just insane, even taking into account how fast cell phones have spread in other countries.

Of course, Facebook is well positioned to take advantage of this, given that it is well adapted to mobile. But so are others, and there's no reason to think that Facebook's monopoly will be permanent. Facebook has the advantage of being the first entrant in an entirely new market, and they have the branding muscle and name recognition to enforce a temporary monopoly. Long term, though (as the article itself acknowledges by pointing to the prevalence of Viber), there is no reason to believe that Facebook's will have a sustainable monopoly over Burmese cell phone users. If something else comes along that handles the use cases that Facebook does, but even better, then people will switch to that.

mercer• 11 years ago

I watched a recently-made documentary the other day about a village in Laos and the dynamic of tourists going there because it was still 'authentic' and the village rapidly modernizing (electricity, tour guides, etc.).

Two scenes stood out to me. The first was of a young, city-educated shop owner who had a laptop and internet. Some of the other villagers came over as he showed them pictures of 'nice ladies' and played music for them. Ever the businessman he offered to download ten tracks for them in exchange for some meat.

The other scene was a merchant passing through and selling plastic bowls and such, but also 'dumb' cellphones. Cue a scene of three guys excitedly comparing ringtones.

What amazed me was not just the rapid technological progress in this village, but how different individuals made extremely different jumps. One guy was excited about phones with fancy ringtones, but the other, in that same small village was already 'facebooking' with a Chinese girl on his laptop.

What strikes me is that the way 'we' think about something like facebook is very different from this villager (and I suppose the other villagers in due time).

For many of us, Facebook is a product that developed over time and one that exists in an ecosystem of social platforms and has a dynamic with its users. We remember older, often national social networks, fondly or otherwise, we discuss the pro's and cons of current social networks, we have already invested time and content into these social networks, and these products have shaped us and vice versa.

But for places like this village, Facebook is a brand-new thing that just appeared with no history or context. They might have no knowledge at all of how Facebook 'should' be used (although I suspect this knowledge travels quickly). Hell, even many of those who grew up with Facebook have that one older family member who somehow thinks each of your posts is meant for them and they respond and like them all!

It's a bit like the difference between dating someone you grew up with and a 'mail-order bride (groom?)' from a different culture. The dynamic is entirely different, and I find this fascinating. I wonder if any research is being done into this.

I guess this is all just a really long-winded way of basically repeating what you said. But it's early and I'm having a coffee and I don't want to start working yet... Apologies!

wingerlang• 11 years ago

Laos is an interesting place, I've only been in Vientiane (the capital).

It is a really (really!) small place, really nothing modern anywhere and dusty. But apparently cars are cheap, so it is chock full of fresh looking big cars (like SUVs).

I also saw a tesla there, apparently the owner owned some business and had it imported.

yla922• 11 years ago

I am a Burmese(Myanmar) guy living in the country. I could say that majority of the people use Facebook when they use the Internet. One of the thing that has been bothering me is that Facebook is cooperating with one of the local telco (Telenor) and did a program called Facebook zero[0] where the users of the aforementioned telco can use the Facebook freely. It is good and bad, I would say. Users would love it, no doubt but I don't want to see that Facebook is dominating the market and there won't be any other advantages to others, even to local startups.

[0] https://www.telenor.com.mm/pages/facebook-zero/164

rossng• 11 years ago

There has been a lot of noise about this same service in several other developing countries. A few have banned it so far. It will be interesting to see how the situation in Burma develops. If Facebook ends up completely dominating the market in the long term, it will be strong evidence that zero-rating is harmful to the web.

_nedR• 11 years ago

Yes. Facebook has been trying to get telcos to foist this on us Indians as well. It has kinda blown up into a big debate about net neutrality in the country. Here is the latest hn article on it : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931750

quanticle2• 11 years ago

Hey, it's awesome to get the view of someone who's there and experiencing all these changes on a day-to-day basis.

Leaving Facebook aside for a moment, can you perhaps elaborate on how daily life has changed, now that cell phones have gone from something solely reserved for the elite to a commodity that pretty much everyone can access, if not own?

dang• 11 years ago

We changed the title from "In Myanmar, Facebook is the internet" to that of the article.

Submitters: please follow the HN guidelines, which ask you to use the original title except when it is misleading or linkbait.

yeldarb2• 11 years ago

I just got back from 2 weeks in Myanmar and it's a fascinating country.

I was very surprised that many of the Buddhist monks you see walking around carry smart-phones and tablets! It threw me for a loop when I saw a monk inside a pagoda playing Candy Crush on his iPad.

Edit: one of the monks on his iPad http://s11.postimg.org/y473yqjk3/12486068_10205302771587155_...

dman2• 11 years ago

Do you happen to have an itinerary you could share? I have been planning to visit for a while.

yeldarb2• 11 years ago

Here's what I did: Flew into Yangon via Bangkok and got my bearings. Then I took an overnight bus (~11 hours I believe) to Bagan and stayed there motor biking around the temples for a few days. From there I took day-bus to Inle Lake (~8 hours). If I would have had more time I would have stopped at Kalau to do the popular 3-day trek to Inle Lake instead. I stayed there for a couple of days (boat rides, bike rides, enjoying the scenery). And then from there I went to Mandalay (not much to see in the town proper but lots of good day trips). And flew back to Bangkok from Mandalay.

It's more expensive than a lot of the rest of Southeast Asia but I still managed on less than $50/day (staying in hostel dorms).

hobolord• 11 years ago

haha yeah, I remember when I visited it was cool seeing all the monks taking selfies at the pagodas

Nutmog• 11 years ago

“Worryingly for digital publishers, there’s a trend towards ‘Facebook prosecutions’ – several people have been jailed in the past few months over what they have allegedly posted, or even shared, on the site.”

Doesn't that just mean it's becoming like every other country? Even America has those. Perhaps the internet is bound to end up controlled by laws just like the real world.

anonbanker• 11 years ago

I regularly (once a month or more) deal with substitutional service orders in the Master's chambers. I have had Kik, Facebook, Snapchat, and even XMPP used as sufficient service.

All you have to do is prove you failed at attempts to contact via traditional methods, which isn't too hard.

My take on the internet is that it is an invention of DARPA, a military organization. That makes everything you say/do on it public, even if (temporarily) obfuscated by encryption schemes. Don't like it? roll your own BATMAN mesh network. Otherwise, sit up straight when you're being watched.

dharma12• 11 years ago

I've run a tech startup in Myanmar for 3 years, and it's true. Facebook is literally synonymous with Internet for many users, and the web gets a lot less use.

Most of the cell towers and infrastructure has been built in 2 years - it's been incredibly fast. Once the telco licenses were awarded, the two telcos (Ooredoo and Telenor) didn't waste any time revving up ops.

Together with Android devices falling rapidly in price, it has been a complete transformation in connectivity.

There are some really positive outcomes, like a group of CS students in Yangon being able to follow Harvard CS MOOC's, and a lot of people working as devs being able to learn from stackoverflow etc. Internet connectivity will empower people to educate themselves but it will take some time.

In terms of commercial opportunities for tech companies, I'm not sure they exist in the scale the article depicts. There are between 50 and 60 million people, but most of the population live in the countryside, with very little spending power. The total market size for internet connected people with some (not very much) spending power is probably around 10 million.

The main challenges are with governance, and physical infrastructure, which are decades behind where they need to be for a functional country, and these are things internet connectivity unfortunately can't fix.

williswee• 11 years ago

thanks sharing. what are some opportunities u see there?

dharma12• 11 years ago

Happy to have a conversation - ping me at info@myanmarplus.net

conorh• 11 years ago

My wife is in Myanmar at the moment, in a place called Taunggyi, she was there a few years ago too and it is amazing the change. Now she can reliably Facetime from there to the east coast of the US, whereas a few years ago she couldn't even get internet!

yla922• 11 years ago

Taunggyi is a lovely place and it's one of the cleanest (and large) city in the country. There are a small town near Taunggyi called 'Kalaw' and it's be great if she could spend sometime there too. It's such a nice weather right now, too.

The change is very quick as you mentioned. The SIM cards became so cheap and the speed became much faster than before. So, even to local people like us, it's amazing.

Myanmar was off the grid for decades, is catching up fast

Related Stories