MTN Nigeria Makes it free to browse on Kaymu.com for the next 12 months: Like, WTF?

[PapaOlabode]

@lawwyy

why are you so mad? how is this cheating? its good business

I beg to differ. This might be ‘good business’ for MTN/Kaymu but definitely not ‘good business’, for our nascent ecosystem.

We discussed this on a similar thread Telco and data bundles and my main reasons why startups should be weary of this are as follows:

@PapaOlabode

1. A lot of apps are in competiton with each other for consumers attention/time even when not in the same industry.

2. Consumers attention/time is not infinite i.e. only 24hrs and in a mobile first continent, can only use one screen, one app at a time.

3. If a user spends 2 hrs in facebook, that’s 2 hrs not spent watching iroko or netflix. Or if a user spends 2 hrs in wikipedia, that’s 2 hrs not spent in jumia or wechat. It’s sometimes as stark as that - it’s one or the other.

4. When you introduce zero based app into the mix, this provides an additional incentive for a user and also convenience (if the app is pre installed) to spend time in the app.

That’s what I meant by my earlier statement. IMO, zero based apps included as part of bundled deals are not harmless to startups. To be clear, a million things are more toxic to startups than zero based apps, so not advocating that anyone stays awake worrying about this.

summary: Deals like this are not good for startups

@lawwyy

like they took money out of your pocket.

Trust me on this, it’s just the start of daylight robbery! I especially like this quote which summarises America’s position on Net Netruality - 'we
cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best
access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for
services and ideas and that’s what the MTN deal goes against!