WhatsApp, MTN?
15 Oct 2015
MTN is upset because WhatsApp is replacing local chat applications for smartphones and wants the Independent Communications Authority of SA to "investigate" foreign operators like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
Because, says MTN, these foreign devils have not invested anything in South Africa. Really? Seriously?
©prykhodov via 123RF
Well MTN, all I can say is that for a company with some of the most expensive voice and data rates in the known universe and that has been making billions from local cell phone users for decades, you have a nerve complaining about anything let alone some applications that allow the citizens of this country to communicate with each other without feeling that their throats have been cut.
Wake up to the way of the world, MTN. Wake up to the way globalisation works. Wake up to the fact that free enterprise is borderless.
What you are demanding is the same as newspapers in this country complaining that consumers are getting news for free over the internet, and as such ICASA should immediately investigate the internet and "level the playing fields." How? By banning the internet?
Newspapers are not making anything like the profits as MTN, but at least they're behaving like adults and bravely facing digital challenges head on. In my opinion these latest demands from MTN over WhatsApp are typical of what is wrong with this country.
It smacks of profit entitlement.
About Chris Moerdyk
Apart from being a corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk is a former chairman of Bizcommunity. He was head of strategic planning and public affairs for BMW South Africa and spent 16 years in the creative and client service departments of ad agencies, ending up as resident director of Lindsay Smithers-FCB in KwaZulu-Natal. Email Chris on moc.liamg@ckydreom and follow him on Twitter at @chrismoerdyk.
