[krrrh]

I don’t know about Nepal, but traditionally places like Brazil pursued “import substitution” strategies of charging high tariffs on technology products to try to establish home-grown industries, and pursue autarky (self-sufficiency).

It’s an insane thing to do since the benefits to consumers and business users of these products is many times higher than the money made by the industries producing them. To a lesser extent the same pattern emerges in dirigiste-curious economies like Canada who limit foreign entrants into markets like telecom, resulting in a general tax on the entire population who suffer expensive and inadequate data plans in order to protect local oligopolies.

[908B64B197]

> To a lesser extent the same pattern emerges in dirigiste-curious economies like Canada who limit foreign entrants into markets like telecom, resulting in a general tax on the entire population who suffer expensive and inadequate data plans in order to protect local oligopolies.

That's something I never understood either. Telecom is a commodity. I also think that's what hurt Blackberry back when it was still relevant: They were developing these phones in an environment where the carrier had all powers and where data was so limited.

I remember them being incredibly skeptical at the iPhone because Apple was expecting data to become cheap and plentiful.

[foolinaround]

> the benefits to consumers and business users of these products is many times higher than the money made by the industries producing them

the money made by the industries producing them is tangible, and there are lobbies protecting it, whereas the benefits to customers are intangible.

If you think about it, it is not the insane thing, in fact, given the system, it is the sane rational thing that benefits these actors.