I have been quite reactionary and naive in my understanding and analysis of the implications of government initiatives like UPI and other elements of the 'India Stack' (a set of software-based public goods developed by the Indian Government).
What made me reason that way is a lack of imagination, nuance and understanding of the possibilities that the open internet and the free market can enable provided that they remain open and free.
The demand and need for initiatives like the India Stack exist as a result of the numerous barriers that have been put in place for solutions to emerge through entrepreneurship, innovation and market demand.
Initiatives like UPI, Aadhar, ONDC and everything else I've mentioned in the quoted note at the end will lead the country down a path of centralised control, unnecessary restrictions and censorship.
But more than the arguments above, what resonates with me the most is the fact that they are subsidised with taxpayer's money and have no market-driven pressure to be profitable, competitive or efficient in the coming years as they scale and become more integrated into the lives of Indians.
To put it simply, the incentives are broken.
The solution is to remove the numerous restrictions imposed on the fintech and software services industry and let the market decide which way it wants to head towards.
But that is infeasible with the current state of affairs.
Bitcoin fixes this.