Not denying the examples Al Hammond has quoted, but just giving my own (perhaps imperfect) viewpoint on how they work (comments interleaved below):
On 10/27/04, Al Hammond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > But for example, ITC, an Indian company that has put Internet-connected > computers in farmers' houses, situating these e-choupals so that each > serves 600 or so farmers, and supplied daily market prices for crops, > found it necessary to create trust and economic and social value in > order for its business model to succeed. They are now serving 4 million > farmers. In siting the e-choupal local systems (the ones I have seen use shared VSAT narrowband for linkage) the choice devolves to the richer farmers, who already have considerable influence in their local domains. While in theory such centers are accessible to all, please recognise the local reality of caste and community that limit access for some - what percentage depends very much on local equations. > 1) Breaking local monopolies of traditional goods and services.... or > the e-choupals that ITC has deployed, offering lower price inputs and > higher prices for the farmer's grain than the local (monopoly) auction > markets. At this point in time, the monopoly of local auctions is being replaced with the monopoly of a large company. I hope that the e-choupal paradigm will be augmented by other market mechanisms, supplied by other players, whether corporate or something else. Let us look one step further - is this globalisation? ITC is a subsidiary of BAT, the trans-national tobacco company, but fought a bitter boardroom battle a few years back against its parent in an effort to preserve some form of independence. No holds were barred, including selective leaks of confidential information to get board officers jailed (subsequently released) for alleged tax and foreign exchange offences. The e-choupal initiative is reputedly the brainchild of the winner of that fight. The way that e-choupal works has not brought about globalisation, it seeks to fix problems in traditional market flaws. > Grameen Phone has close to 100,000 entrepreneurs providing village phone > service. True, but they had a hard time getting out of the towns and cities in the beginning - I am talking about 1999, which is 5 years ago. Quite a few of those 'entrepreneurs' at the time were allegedly city socialites - but the bills got paid. This sort of information isn't usually found on the corporate web-site or in news reports, possibly because it remains hearsay, without a concerted effort to record information at the time. Had Grameen Phone set itself up as the straightforward commercial phone service it really was, it wouldn't have been allowed to even get off the ground, given the monopolistic behaviour of the local government telco. I mention these two examples only to show that the realities of social change are very very complex and shouldn't be simplified into 'corporate' vs 'other model' - such divides do not serve the purpose that are sought by questions such as this topic line suggest. -- Vickram ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
