I. Your ISP: Forget broadband, forget DSL, worry about getting the simple dial-up to work. ISPs pride themselves on their lifetime packages. Unfortunately, given the quality of their service, it would take a lifetime, or two, to use up just 30 hours of such a connection. In fact, nowadays, you get a free Internet connection with virtually everything you buy, whether you want it or not, whether you have a PC or not. You buy a toothpick and you have a connection thrown in. Perhaps, somebody would tell these guys that acquiring new users should come second to actually providing a semblance of satisfaction to the existing bunch.
2. Your Helpdesk: Have you encountered God? Or met a sarkari babu without an appointment? if you've managed either, you've probably also managed to get through to your ISP Helpdesk. These 24x7 illusory objects appear to exist on paper, actually on broadsheet advertising. There have been reports of people actually managing to get through to an ISP Helpdesk, muttered in undertones at hush-hush cult gatherings. But none of these reports have been substantiated.
3. The portal war: It goes on, despite the dotcom meltdown. Now you also have the Yanks thrown in for good measure and the ad deluge continues. Actually, the ad agencies are probably the only ones that have benefited from this extravagance. If only some of these guys actually spent a fraction of their adspend on meaningful content or service.
4. The Hype: First there was the dotcom chimera, that coalesced into the B2B sub-species. Then you had WAP, now it's all about convergence and optical fibre. The Next Big Thing is always out there as are the fly-by-nighters trying to convince some VC that they've hit upon it. And there's a credulous IT hack brigade that swallows this tripe.
5. The Shopping Malls: Buy Online may be the new mantra, but who will? if there are 10 lakh users in the country and half of them own credit cards and a tenth of that numbers actually get over the horror stories of hacking and breached security and a tenth of that number actually get down to serious business online, how many buyers does that leave? Especially since everything on offer is available a short walk down your office or home without attendant hassles like getting disconnected half way through a transaction. Take the case of one particular site that calls itself India's biggest. When customers place orders and even if they're not fulfilled, the service charge is still, well, charged. So much for e-malls.
6. Pomposity: "Roti, kapda, makaan aur bandwidth"? For God's sake! The cheerleaders of the new economy should be given a crash course in reality. When basic medical or health facilities are not available in most of the country, is this an issue?
7. The Revolution?: That's revolting, the very thought. Think about it, even the very very pucca urban elite have problems logging on and staying on. To get connected, you require a working telephone, a commodity our telecom companies service somewhat less efficiently than the municipal authorities our roads. And even if the phone's working, the electricity will probably be off. So, the surf may be up but there won't be many folk out there hanging 10.
8. The Government: The Web had a chance of working in India till early 2000. Now it has no chance. The Government has decided to legislate, regulate and, as usual, strangulate. So, what's in the offing is probably a fiat that your homepage has to be some lousy sarkari site and they'd probably charge you postage for e-mail if they could figure out a way.
9. E-Governance: That's what all states are talking about, trying to emulate Cyber Naidu. Unfortunately, in the case of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, he overlooked basic issues like food, sanitation, potable water, flood and drought relief or welfare for farmers in his drive to get the state online. So the crores spent on setting up cyberkiosks will only benefit one section of the populace - the politicos who get to line their pockets just that bit more.
10. Jaal: If the Internet can produce websites such as this one, does it even deserve to survive in this country?

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