WhatsApp CEO anxious about India's rush for homegrown apps like Koo

WhatsApp CEO anxious about India's rush for homegrown apps like Koo: WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart expressed his worry about the Indian government's push for homegrown apps like Koo because it could force a ‘splinternet', a characterization where instead of having a global internet, countries have their own regulations. "We already have a splinternet with Mainland China and the rest of the world," Cathcart said on the Big Technology Podcast last week adding that "people benefit a lot from products that work globally."

 

Koo is claimed to be India's answer to Twitter for non-English users. It has picked a lot of steam in the country in the wake of the Narendra Modi government's ongoing war with the US-based micro-blogging platform. Many big-ticket politicians and celebrities have joined Koo in the wake of the 'standoff' giving it a major shot in the arm, something that saw it cross over 40 lakh users within no time. Koo aims to draw 10 crore users by the end of this year.

 

Cathcart said, "A lot of the decisions we’re going to make on the internet, our governments are going to make on the internet over the next 10-20 years, I think will really shape whether this is a global market, or whether each country has its own mini-internet with its own mini-apps. And I think the latter would be worse. It's hard for me to imagine even how you ask people to do that, I think it’s such a fundamental threat. So, we’ll stand and we’ll make our case, and we’ll argue. My hope is, we can find something that is not breaking encryption, that addresses the concerns that’s much more reasonable." Read More