The telecom service from the Ambanis, Jio was seen as a major disruptor; a game-changer in the telecom space of the country. Suddenly everyone had a Jio sim. Every other telecom company was forced to lower tariffs and offer improved plans to customers just so they wouldn’t migrate. Recently Jio announced that they would be charging for a service that they had promised would be ‘Lifetime free’. Needless to say; Twitter erupted in disapproval and indignation; #BoycottJio started to trend:
Jio to other networks would cost six paise per minute and for every Rs. 10 spent, there would be one GB data made available free.
To begin with, Jio promised free calling and data and started to charge for data after some time. After promising that all calls would be free for life, this seemed like a betrayal.
The sudden announcement was not well received. Everyone seemed to remember the promise made and then broken.
As with most things these days, people saw a nefarious design here --- to create a monopoly and then earn big profits.
Airtel and other services such as the state telecom operator BSNL also quickly got into the conversation. BSNL made it a point to mention the current crisis within the organisation; which has put thousands of jobs at risk currently.
Perhaps the other telecom companies were happy to see the topic trending on Twitter – because schadenfreude!
The exponential rise in Jio’s customer base meant that the company had something of a hegemony in the telecom space. People who had been pleased with all the freebies so far suddenly seem to have woken up to the evils of monopolies.
A lot of subscribers were very angry and threatened to migrate to other service providers.
Of course the memes were many --- all cursing Jio and its duplicity.
People thought that other telecom services would get a new lease in life – and they acknowledged that this would be better for consumers.
The tweeple were very angry to the say the least. And they did not mince their words when expressing their ire.
Many thought that there was no need to be angry. It was just 6 paise per minute after all.
There were a few people who tweeted in support of Jio; who recalled how Jio’s market disruption benefited us all at the time.
People tweeting with #BoycottJio felt that it isn’t the 6 paisa but the fact that Ambani failed to keep a promise and acted in an imperious that annoyed them so much.
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