If social media is an experiment, we are all Pavlov’s dogs. Twitter, a laboratory in this spectacle of operant conditioning, has 335 million subjects. We start by craving instantaneous information and exchange. Time, however, conditions us to salivate at stimuli that either reward or punish us. If you’re one of the millions of Indians on … Read more Down the rabbit hole of donation shaming
“Dream11 brings out the selector in you,” said celebrated Indian cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle in a 2017 advertisement for the fantasy sport company Dream11. It was this advertisement that got Aditya Somani (name changed), a 26-year-old marketing professional, hooked to the platform. Now you might be wondering why we would change the name of a … Read more Fantasy sport, real money: Dream11 thrives on betting minus regulation
The Ouroboros is dead. The Ouroboros is an ancient mythical symbol of a snake eating its own tail. It’s often taken to symbolise the eternal cycle, especially in the sense of something constantly destroying and re-creating itself. It also represents the infinite cycle of nature’s endless creation and destruction; life and death. As we had … Read more RIP Tapzo: Will the Ouroboros rest in pieces?
When Asif Raza Rana, a Pakistani government worker, posted an image to his Facebook page on 13 September 2015, he had no idea that it would make internet history. It was a photograph of him shaking hands with a man named Salman, above two small photos of another man—Mudasir—who had been crossed out in each … Read more Memes to an end: The underbelly of Reddit’s IndianPeople Facebook
Before 2015, the Indian telecom industry was rife with players—nine in all. Then Reliance Jio happened, and as data tariffs plummeted, a wave of consolidation ensued. The latest example being the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular to form Vodafone Idea which concluded on 31 August. Now, the Indian telecom industry has just three … Read more The post-spectrum phase of Indian telecom