Video or audio is far more effective than text when it comes to expressing ideas or opinions. There’s so much you can tell from the tone and other nonverbal communication that you’d lose in a transcript.

Interactive/synchronous communication (think interviews) is also done much better with video/audio.

Recording a video is  quicker than typing a post! Think product reviews.

However, quoting a piece in a video is impossible. Linking to a specific part in a video is also impossible right now, although it could be implemented.

Bandwidth issues notwithstanding,  we’re going to see some websites migrate to pure-video formats; others will begin to include video occasionally. There will also be increasing pressure on blogging services to make video uploads/embeds easier.

Is it that such a plan requires economy of scale, or a certain critical mass of customers to become viable, and that mass is not there in India yet? Such a case would be a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, where subscribers won’t take up broadband plans because they aren’t attractive (either price-wise or feature-wise), and cable companies/telcos won’t provide these plans until there are enough subscribers. I think some vendor as large as Reliance Infocomm is in the best position to absorb short-term losses (which I’m sure they did for Reliance India Mobile) in return for a large (and captive) chunk of a new market.

And there is definitely a large market. In 2005, the number of Internet connections in India was 50.5 million (pathetically low, yes). But even in August 2005, the number of broadband connections were about 0.5 million! As opposed to China with 28 million, Japan with about the same, and the US with 42 million! Even tiny South Korea has well over 10 million (and broadband penetration is well over 70%!).

Is it that there is too much effort and risk involved in laying the infrastructure for providing Broadband to enough homes to reach that critical mass that’ll allow vendors to manage large enough margins with unlimited broadband? Given the state of roads everywhere in India, where your cables could be dug up, damaged, cut by the municipal corporation during road repairs, before you can say Jack Robinson, there isn’t too much incentive to lay cables,especially when they’re fibre-optic ones. Perhaps wireless could be a wonderfully clean alternative, but as I’ve mentioned in the past, it can be more messy than its worth.

Or is it that providers are used to reaping large margins on the (albeit small) base of broadband users in India, and would be loath to see those margins fall? Such a case would be sheer shortsightedness – trying to squeeze more out of a small market instead of attempting to expand the market.