Jim Collins has been researching and writing about the Flywheel as a value of enterprises. For those who may not know, here his most famous illustration - the Amazon Flywheel.

Lower prices led to more customer visits. More customers increased the volume of sales and attracted more commission-paying third-party sellers to the site. That allowed Amazon to get more out of fixed costs like the fulfillment centers and the servers needed to run the website. This greater efficiency then enabled it to lower prices further.

In another article, Jim writes - "those who drive companies into decline often abandon the big thing they already have, grasping instead for a new big thing, then another and another, falling into a doom loop of chronic inconsistency"

While not written in the article above, but my experience says that 'Consulting / System Integrator Services' is plagued by this particular phenomenon. Consulting firms are forced to move from one "next big thing" to the other constantly. This is not a fault of the company or the management but just the way services business is - customers call consultants or integrators when they don't have skills to do something internally. And since talent is usually available for most 'ingrained' work, consultants end up doing only - the 'next big thing'.

Some service businesses like actuarial, legal or accounting seem to be insulated from the 'skills' issue, but they too more often than not get pulled into managing change for their clients. [Ex. accountants need to help manage changes in taxation on an almost constant basis, lawyers have to help manage changing laws, insurance advisors often changing valuation methods and so on.]

Hence (professional) services firms never get a chance to scale "without" adding more resources to the revenue engine. Key is "without adding resources": resources here being people and their skills and hence paraphernalia like a management structure to manage people, office spaces, managing people churn etc

On the contrary, a product business has its flywheel - it can keep running faster and faster every week, month, year with the same effort [read: resources] you put in. What traction you build in the first week just gets reinforced with the second week's effort and so on. Not so in services where each relationship, each skill, and then each project has to gain momentum from scratch - they don't feed into a flywheel.

And so if you have 1 'Engagement Manager' managing 3 clients, you will need 3 to manage 9 relationships. In contrast, a team of engineers or designers can build version 1 of a product in year 1 and then add many more features to it in year 2 without losing the value of work done in year 1.

The last point - in "almost" all services, loss of human resources means 100% loss of IP. If a consultant leaves you, you have to recruit another as good or train another to become as good. But with products, the IP is (partially) captured in the product and so if a designer or engineer leaves, s/he can't take away the IP that got locked in the product. Though there will still be some loss of IP (because they'd take expertise in architecture, understanding the product etc), the loss would be less than 100% - how much less would vary from product to product.

This is one reason why it is harder to find too many billionaires who own services companies - the exceptions being the founders of IT Services Giants viz. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture etc. Few of them have hacked the services model to productise their service; for example Michael Dell who converted 'assembly of computers' into 'manufacturing computers'.

Another class of services business which have bucked this challenge are restaurant chains where the service of providing 'food' is hacked into providing experiences. Branding and consistent ambience play a big role in helping such businesses make the transition from 'pure services' to 'branded services'. Big 4 consulting firms also have done this in professional services as have some legal firms and 'real estate services' firms like JLL and CBRE. The existence of these exceptions, however, goes on to prove the rule - most competitors of these services 'biggies' are much smaller and local players. They play on cost and not value and hence have another reason why they can never scale.

On the contrary, there are many 'product' players who have scaled in past with or without VC funding. This could be one of the major filters that wannabe entrepreneurs can use to select business ideas on which to stake their lives.

I have mentioned in past that "If the Indian constitution is a copy of the British and American systems, it’s the most intelligent and well customised copy ever made"

STV/IRV used in single-seat elections with more than two candidates. Instead of voting only for a single candidate, voters in IRV elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate in last place is eliminated and removed from consideration. The top remaining choices on all the ballots are then counted again.

This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an "instant runoff" that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head. IRV has the effect of avoiding split votes when multiple candidates earn support from like-minded voters

... the solution [to legislative gridlock] is not to scrap the checks and balances ... but rather to adopt new voting rules (like instant-runoff) [to] facilitate greater flexibility within political parties and hopefully the creation of viable new ones

Influence from Medieval Indian governance

Vivek Kumar Agrawal was retiring today, leaving behind an illustrious career at Coal India Limited and a model career path for his subordinates to look forward to. VK Sir, as he was called, was the poster boy of what PSU corporate executive should be - astute in his dealings, non-controversial decisions, well read from all worlds - VK would be able to recite lines from Munshi Premchand's novels as effortlessly as he would quote Phillip Kotler's management philosophies.

Yet, VK was wondering if he had indeed taken the right decisions since he left his father's home 35 years ago. VK was the youngest of 3 brothers born in a typical 'Agrawal' family in Allahabad, the family had been living in the "holy" city for generations - at least as many generations VK had heard about! And they were even typical in their commercial engagement - his father like his grandfather and great grandfather ran a Kirana store in the city. VK's brothers, the eldest almost 12 years older, were regular contributors at the shop ever since VK remembers.

VK had a razor sharp mind, just like his brothers, but he was quite different from them in other ways. VK loved reading, whether it was books, the morning newspaper, or even a pamphlet. In hindsight, he borrowed this quality from his father - who was an avid reader himself. In fact, as VK reflected on his upbringing, his life was a reflection of his father's dreams.

Ful Kumar Agrawal or Agrawal Saab as he was known in the locality, was deeply influenced in his growing up years by the Indian freedom struggle. While he could not involve himself into the deliberations, he idolized leaders like Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru who hailed from Allahabad. The incident of lathi charge on a peaceful protest by Lala Lajpat Rai and subsequent death of Lalaji left a deep imprint on him. He was just 21 then, married with his first child on its way; had it been a few years earlier Agrawaal Saab would have plunged into the freedom movement himself.

The longing to get involved with the freedom movement, never fulfilled in reality, pushed him to follow it by reading about it. He read almost all works of Lalaji and other leaders, even regularly scoured nationalist newspapers and had a collection of all the paper cuttings from 1920s all the way till independence. After independence and with advancing age and worry about taking care of his family, his fire to read slowly perished, though he would occasionally find solace in reading the daily newspaper and in later years, books by spiritual leaders like Swami Vivekananda.

For the young VK however, the collection of books and newspaper cuttings kept by Agrawal Saab in the attic, became the first tryst with 'voracious' reading. Agrawal Saab was also impressed by his youngest son's ability to be more involved in studies than the family business. Over years, his impression of VK's studious nature grew enough so that he not only prodded him to study harder, he made sure that unlike his elder brothers, VK was never asked to help in the Kirana shop unless he wanted to.

VK was the first in their family to get admission into an Engineering course and that too to the prestigious Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College. At MNREC, VK not only outshined with academic excellence, he also learnt and demonstrated venerable management skills - the prodigal skills of managing money were anyway inherent in him being a 'Baniya'! In the last year of his degree, VK was a key student volunteer involved with setting up an industrial estate with 69 sheds within the college. These were also days when he got nicknamed as VK by his friends, a name which stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Soon VK joined Coal India as an Engineer trainee at the Ranchi township, this was a juncture where everyone, including his brothers, felt proud of VK - he was the ideal boy who's example would be quoted to every younger kid in the locality. Soon VK was married and started rising in his career at Coal India. He would however also remain involved with family's finances. Being the most educated of his Sons, Agrawal Saab would often consult VK on the expansion of the family's estate. The one shop had already been split into two by the time VK left for Coal India, but later, in fact on the insistence of VK, one of his elder brothers opened a new garment shop in a different part of the city which soon prospered.

Agrawal Saab was again impressed by VK's ability to suggest the right outcomes. Even though the youngest, VK could think strategically and long term, unlike his elder sons who continued to be mired by the day to day vagaries of business. Every time, he would meet VK, he would ask how he was doing in his job and prod him on questions of returning back to Allahabad and start his own business.

For VK however, his father's questions and interventions sounded uninformed or naive if not anachronistic. He felt that his father could not just see the world outside of the petty little business establishment he had seen. He often took his father around the Coal plant so that he could see the scale at which the plant operated and he would spend time describing his daily work to his father explaining the role he was playing in running the plant.

VK was on his way to becoming one of the youngest General Managers at Coal India. This time round, when his parents came to visit his family, his father got even more restless seeing the amount of time VK would spend in the office. VK had little time to attend to his parents - and he knew his father was feeling a little lonely. This time when his father brought up the question of moving back and starting a business of his own, VK got into explaining him about the hierarchy at Coal India and how he was rising very fast and that opening another Kirana Shop in Allahabad would be too small an enterprise for him.

Agrawal Saab was stunned at the response - he did retort that he never wanted VK to come back to the Kirana shop business, but to start something of a much larger scale and size which would benefit the city he hailed from. Nationalistic thoughts still prevailed in Agrawaal Saab even though he was too old to feel the heat of nationalism. VK cited reasons such as the inability of the private sector to take up projects at the scale like Coal plants or anything, and that was almost the end of the discussion. Agrawal Saab never brought up the topic again - he passed away a few years later.

After his father's demise and also given his rise in career and the time it consumed, VK's involvement in the family business reduced to almost nil. He did make a General Manager a few years later, but office politics and slow down in the Public Sector in general stunted his rise in subsequent years. He got transferred and while his overall stature kept growing, his career graph, in specific, plateaued out.

Given that his role in the family business was lost, VK also lost any de facto share he would have inherited in the family business. The ancestral house was already occupied by families of his brothers so he effectively lost out on any inheritance he could have received from the property. VK didn't mind - he had a handsome salary and the PSU lifestyle provided everything, a huge property to live in, decent education for his children and lifestyle which suited him. They had access to Clubs, movie theatres and shopping centres even in the remotest townships of Coal India. VK had two sons, one went on to graduate from NIT, Trichy and another completed his CA; life was running full and fulfilling.

What VK did not notice however was how his family, his brothers rather, had progressed in life. His brothers had expanded into multiple shops selling electronics and then took on dealerships of large electronics companies. While his sons toiled hard to crack competitive exams, his nephews had started working in the family business. By the time his elder son graduated from NIT, Trichy and got an offer from Infosys, his eldest nephew Aakash was on his way to opening a Honda automobile showroom in Allahabad and younger Simanth was laying out groundwork to open an Engineering college!

And then one day, in early 2002, the newspaper was awash with news of Bharti Airtel IPO. The paper had a detailed profile of Sunil Mittal, the founder. Sunil had started out as a cycle parts manufacturer in Ludhiana, moved into manufacturing push button phones and then suddenly catapulted into becoming a telecom operator when the government opened the sector for private players. That day, VK remembered his father's words - about going back to Allahabad and starting something of scale and size which would benefit the city he hailed from. He wondered if he would have taken heed of Agrawal Saab's words, he could have been someone like Sunil Bharti Mittal.

But alas, Sunil Mittal was the son of a politician, not that of just another Kirana shop owner from a non-descript background. But then he looked back at the commercial success of his brothers' sons and then compared what his academically illustrious sons had achieved till now. His elder son was working with Infosys and younger had just been selected to join PwC. But financially, they were both far from attaining independence while their elder cousins were running businesses worth crores.

Today when he retired with laurels and compliments from his superiors and juniors alike, VK looked back at the satisfying 35-year career at Coal India. The many achievements and the survival in spite of the PSU seeing few bad days. Personally, he had a great network and reputation among his circle of friends, fellows, colleagues and subordinates. He was well respected in his circle of influence. But was he financially where he could have been? But did financial success really mean anything without the kind of prestige his job got him? But again, could he have become an equally revered figure if he had started his own thing in his 30s while attaining financial success also? Would his children have had a better future? Should he suggest this to his children now? But being brought up in a typical PSU twonship culture, will they be happy doing a small business?

All these questions ran through VK's mind - the answers, of course, were lost in a disarray of dots that had never connected! 

I grew up in a typical suburban home, single storied, lush garden around it. Whether it was the nostalgia of living that life or observation of lower cost of living in a small city, till recently I used to idolise that life, yearned to go back to it - until I started my research into sustainable living!

Until I started researching on what "sustainable" living is, I used to assume that since the cost of living in a small city is lower, hence lifestyle there is less wasteful. And on the surface, it indeed was so in India, until a few years back. Until 2010s, most small cities did not have huge malls - the usual evening hangout would be a park or a single screen theatre; roads were much less crowded and small cars would outnumber guzzlers (SUVs) by a quadruple if not more; people bought fruits & vegetables from small shops who'd get supplied by local farmers.

Metros or big cities, in contrast, had big malls, roads were clogged - one wasted more fuel idling at the traffic signal than driving around, SUVs & Sedans were more common; you'd buy daily grocery and vegetables from the supermarket where everything was packed with 3 layers of plastic etc. Other utilities like sewage management were bad in both small and big cities, but big cities generated much more garbage than smaller ones where people's habits (due to a lower standard of living) were less wasteful. Extending the same analogy between small cities vs. rural landscape - poverty and proximity to 'traditional' or agrarian lifestyle made village life look more sustainable or less wasteful.

However, two things changed circa 2010 - first, the govt started recognising that India was urbanising and govt programs started targeting upgradation of urban infrastructure. And given that govt schemes were based on population statistics, Metros got a much higher share of this spending.

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/india/disposable-personal-income

Second, incomes started taking quantum jumps in India, and people across the spectrum - villages, small cities and metros - started spending more money on luxuries. Malls mushroomed in Tier 2 cities, SUVs followed soon, poorer villages started seeing two-wheelers and prosperous ones upgraded to four wheelers (even if they were second hand used cars from the nearby town). Thus as metros started getting better sanitation, better public transport (Ex. Metro trains), life became (comparatively) less wasteful while small towns and villages started spending more, but lacked the ability to deal with the environmental consequences (more plastic waste, vehicular pollution or traffic jams, sewage) generated from this spending.

Parallel to this shift in India's landscape, my own study on the concept of sustainable living continued. Many articles, papers and solo thinking sessions later, (about 3 years ago)  I converted to believing that a life in the city is more sustainable because a city promotes clustering and clustering reduces the amount of waste per person. Studies on American suburbs suggest that cost of laying drainage, sewage and even electric and road connections to individual houses or even a cluster of row-houses in suburbs is much higher on the economy and ecology than wiring / sewering up a 30 storied building in the dense city. Add to it virtual death of the personal transport thanks to dense tube/metro networks which inhabit developed cities like London, the city (especially clusterized metro city) is a far more sustainable habitat for humans.

A major positive side-effect a vertically built dense city infrastructure is that large swaths of land can be freed for vegetation and animals. Plus within the city, we can build gardens which can be maintained at a much lesser cost per person, unlike the suburban home where each one must maintain their own manicured lawn and tend to their plants. I live in one such locality in Mumbai and can bet that my lifestyle is greatly enhanced by living in a cluster than if I have a row-house in a far away suburb of Navi Mumbai or a small city like Baroda or Indore.

In short, from a kid who revels and defends the suburban lifestyle he grew up in, I was almost converted to a city (metro) dweller who vouches for more people to move to cities and metros and leave alone the countryside for the few humans who engage in Agriculture and nature - forests, farms and animals who deserve to live in them. American suburban life or European small cities and their suburbs started looking evil and wasteful - more importantly unsustainable for the 21st century; and Tokyo (Japan) like lifestyle, while a little claustrophobic, started looking the most logical way we humans should imagine our future.

However, my reverie has been broken recently - thanks to Elon Musk and his onslaught of energy efficient equipment from the Tesla car, to Tesla batteries - which allow suburban homes to survive off grid for weeks - to the most recent Solar Roof which promises to allow homes to completely disconnect from the grid!

More on this in the next post
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I love Firefox and the Mozilla foundation - it was the beacon of innovation when Microsoft tried to kill it with repeated versions of its buggy Internet Explorer! If you were involved in software development or managing online products circa 2005-2008, you would know the nightmare it was to develop a website compatible with IE and its myriad of versions (IE6 was especially notorious)!

At that time, Firefox was our ray of hope, and I would have tried to evangelise almost every friend, family or client to ditch IE and embrace FF. With clients, however, the big problem was, Firefox was an Open Source software and the corporate world has a certain amount of scepticism towards this species of software. [Ironical because most of the largest software services in the world run on Operating Systems which are clones of Linux and most of the web's websites run on Apache - these two being probably the largest Open Source projects in the world!]

Source: Netcraft Webserver survey 2017

In spite of this, when I got this blog post from Mozilla (the non-profit which runs Firefox) in my mailbox, I got thinking about whether Open Source community is right in thinking that Software, where no one takes credit, is really the reason for the success of Open Source? I quote:

My apartment building has a community garden. The building owner started it with a donation of raised beds and soil. What happened next amazes me to this day.

One day tools appeared, the next a shed to store them. Seeds were planted. Someone put up string trellises for tomatoes. No one took credit. 

Honestly, other philosophies that pride in "no-one, in particular, taking credit" (or Common Ownership) are Communism and Socialism. The concept of everyone contributing to the best of their abilities and being rewarded universally is very Marxist and the Chinese story notwithstanding, we've seen the model failing to deliver in the erstwhile USSR and several other communist colonies which broke down in mid-90s.

My doubts also emerge from the fact that while Firefox did help keep the hope alive during the dark period of 2000-2010 for browser innovation, the real clincher was Google supported Chrome browser.

Today most organisations - SMBs to MNC Enterprises use (or allow) the Chrome browser. Google did significant amount of (subtle) marketing to ensure that it was able to usurp the hegemony of Microsoft over the browser market since Chrome's launch in 2008. And these 'for profit' dollars poured into evangelising corporations probably helped sideline Internet Explorer.

As this chart shows, IE declined steadily once Chrome was launched, while Firefox's penetration levels have remained steady but not really grown much (proportionally) in the intervening years.


Mozilla Foundation is a great organisation - if you are concerned about your privacy, if you are someone who believes in rights of individuals over the state, if you want to keep the web open and secure - you should support them. Geeks and Intellectuals still use the Firefox browser more than they use Chrome. (I am not one of them, I use FF only on special purpose - bit the self-confessed Google fan that I am, Chrome is my mainstay).

Organisations like Mozilla need to exist so that if one day Google, even against its corporate motto, turns evil - we have a ray of hope. However, the example does set back the hope of the early 90s that Open Source will trump Proprietery software one day to create a truly "Free Software" world.

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I've just finished reading The Animal Farm, and while it essentially describes conditions in USSR under Stalin just after the WW2, it can be generalised to any country or political setup a few years or cycles after a major change. It is not just a commentary on Communist or totalitarian regimes (or Stalin's period) alone, but also a general account of how every political system deteriorates over a period of time, after acquiring power.

In specific, I think, it starts applying to present day India, now that the BJP has occupied the top slot in the pecking order displacing the Congress firmly and has bolstered its position for a near sure victory in 2019 elections following the thumping victory in 4 of 5 State Assembly elections.

Chance and serendipity can often spring profound thoughts and insights; I experienced one such moment today. I was driving towards office and switched on the Radio. All India Radio FM Gold channel was broadcasting an audio re-run of the famed Mahabharat TV Serial.

I find it peculiar when I see email signature which says XYZ, Dept-Name, [City Name] Office – without mentioning the name of their company - let’s not forget to put the organization before us!

But it doesn’t end there – yes, we all crib sometimes about problems with Admin, Finance and HR, but in the end we are all one firm – Support teams take as much pride in working for their company as client facing staff does. Over my tenure, one belief which has always stayed with me is that if I am ever stranded, I can just call upon my “KPMG citizenship” to bail me out of any situation. That feeling indeed is something I will have to live without!

3. Take Pride

I cannot stress this one enough! Pride is everything – how you look when you turn up for a meeting, how your document looks when it reaches the client’s mailbox, how you speak, what you do at the client site ... We all need to be extremely conscious that we represent our organizations and everything we do defines them as much as they define us! We are the face of our firm, every report, every document, every email from you carries similar prestige as those from Directors. So take pride and an equal amount of diligence in making them.

4. Remain connected within and without

As we specialize we will get divided into smaller specialized work groups – remember they are work groups not relationship groups for you. And if you plan to rely on networking with clients, your internal networks must be strong and across organizational divisions. Ensure you know others in and outside your department, function, city, even country if you can! Even extend that network to past colleagues.

5. Never say no to work

Not because, you’ll upset that boss who sits in your appraisal, but simply because the more you work, the more you learn. This statement is especially true for consultants. Every engagement I’ve worked on has been a learning and has helped me in future work.

6. Practice Networking

Many of us think that networking is done by sales teams or bosses to get business; a very narrow view of the value of networking. Networking is sitting in the cafeteria with colleagues, often those outside your department, networking is helping someone do their tax submissions, networking is helping a client with finding a restaurant to take his wife/girlfriend to. And it is best done without expectation of returns. Finally, only if you have practiced networking within your organizaion will you be able to do it outside effectively.

I have heard many ‘post-appraisal’ discussions when people feel that others who make themselves ‘visible’ are given undue advantage. While I believe the system is fairer than we imagine, nevertheless, if it does favour those who are better networked, it doesn’t do any injustice. If you can’t network internally with your peers and superiors – how do you expect to do this outside the organization? Internal networking builds a habit which makes external networking natural!

7. Don't ignore life

We have all burnt mid-night oil and that’s not what I am asking you to say no to! But remember if you got to work hard, party harder and live a great life – health is possibly one thing you need. I realized this more as I grew older, and I really wish someone had told me this earlier. I started a regular regimen quite late in my life and trust me the later you start the more difficult it becomes to maintain discipline. Make sure you ‘exercise’ your body and mind equally well on a regular basis along with putting in long hours at work.

While work life balance might be a chimera in consulting, and it's a personal preference to maintain it, ignoring life may be the worst thing for your career. Don’t let the saying “Life is what happens to you when you are busy doing other things” become true for yourself!

8. A consultant is half scientist half celebrity

Note I didn't include salesman, doctor, investment banker, janitor etc in the list. Consulting is an abused term, but rightly o because consultants are manfridays for their clients, but for ourselves we need to think ourselves as scientists – those who seek insights; and celebrities – those who can baulk in limelight gracefully. Making it simple – it is not sufficient to know your subject, it is also important to articulate it well so that the client appreciates your knowledge. Similarly, it's ok to fake knowledge it sometimes, but make sure you utilise the next available opportunity to research enough on your subject so as not to look like a fool in the next meeting. If you do these two, you will never need to “Sell” your services!

9. Turn up at the client site as often as you can

It may be a great feeling to be around friends in office – but nothing in professional life is more rewarding than being at the client site. I inherently am a bad networker – with people and clients – my basic nature is that of a shy reticent individual. But during my consulting days with KPMG, I always preferred being at client sites and this helped me become the opposite.

At the same time, even though I didn’t ‘network’ intentionally with so many clients but just seeing me turn up at their office every day, week, month – made them know me better and helped me build a relationship with them. When there were days I only had office work to do, I still preferred doing it sitting at a client office – being with my project team members and in front of the client rather than sitting in the office.

10. Invest in yourself

Similar to not ignoring life, but related to more to growing as a professional. It may be a great feeling to be called an expert on a particular subject, but in the ever-changing world of today – your status will not stay for long. Make sure you are watchful of whether or not you are growing as a professional and keep investing in yourself. The best part about being a consultant is that the firm will support, reward and even pay you for investing in yourself. And unlike clients who can hire you if they don't have the right skills, you can't hire someone else to do your job!

11. Never bcc

True to one of the values I imbibed in KPMG (we are open and honest in our communications); Bcc is an enemy of this! If you ever feel like ‘I don’t want to clutter his/her mailbox with the replies” – please forward that mail to them separately than doing a Bcc.

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The Economist argues in this article how online services which provide for personalised services are breaching some age-old notions of privacy.

Google mines the data it collects from users for two purposes. One is to improve the user experience, making its various online services more personal, useful and rewarding for the individual—and thereby increasing their popularity. The other purpose is to provide better targeted information for advertisers.
That is fine for the vast majority of internet users, who are happy to trade a measure of privacy for the convenience. However, most people (though not all) stop short of blurting out more intimate details about their private lives.
Even so, all those innocuous bits of self-revelation can be pieced together, jig-saw fashion, by intelligent algorithms. Throw in the digital paper-trails stashed in Google searches and Amazon purchases, and things can begin to get a little scary.

The above is a foregone conclusion - we all are ignoring the looming fear of privacy invasion for the convenience that online services give us. In fact, after much brouhaha about the US NSA snooping over a vast majority of the world (incl. politicians in other countries), not much seems to have changed in the world perception given how social media platforms (hosted in US data centers and subject to US laws) have snowballed into world's largest corporations.

However, another concern is now coming up which is not so much about someone knowing about the underwear brand I wear (which wouldn't really be very devastating), but about me NOT knowing what I don't know.

One of the foundational principles of democracy - which underpins other more explicit principles like freedom of speech or freedom of practising one's religion - is the freedom and the right to have access to unfettered information. One of the reasons North Korea and even China are castigated by proponents freedom is because of the conditions imposed by these regimes on the flow of information to their citizens.

Recent studies have shown that excessive personalization of say our Facebook feeds or WhatsApp Group based news which we receive, makes us as blind to other perspectives as may be people of a restrictive or oppressed regime.

The information we take in is so personalized that we’re blind to other perspectives. Thats why Trump was a surprisehttps://t.co/MtN8np3jHE

— Nikhil Kulkarni (@kulkarninikhil) November 10, 2016

No wonder that religious preachers, right wing activists and even divisive religion based military group like the ISIS find Social Media a good source of recruiting volunteers!

Activist Eli Pariser who has coined the term Filter Bubble argues that "while we might think of the internet as an impartial, universal library with Google serving as a superhuman Dewey decimal system, it’s remarkably, and perhaps pathologically, individualised". Another article by Rohit Prasad of MDI, Gurgaon, in India, argues that -

"The institution of paid search raises barriers to entry for firms that do not have the required marketing budgets and that apart from paid search which is quite evidently non-neutral, the paradigm of neutral search itself is being questioned as anti-competition"

This is still quite benign as it only attacks the laissez-faire economy principles of the free market, but he also adds that -

"the use of personalization rules in serving search returns implies that we get to see what the search engine thinks we would like based on surfing information it has gathered about any people, rather than some ‘objective’ listing"

Veterans of journalism - the fourth pillar of a democracy - agree with this sentiment. As Rich Jaroslovsky, the chief journalist at SmartNews, puts it - "Excessive personalization creates a rabbit hole ... you never discover anything that you didn't know already and your world view gets narrower .. and ultimately leads people to feel dissatisfied" (Source: futureof.news)

The filter bubble or rabbit hole - whatever you may want to call it is a very dangerous phenomenon for multiple reasons:

1. The Internet is entering  every sphere of our lives - from 'where to buy a house' to 'which route to take for the morning commute to office. If personalised technology makes us take biased decisions, it may be impacting our whole life! Further, it may be preventing us from benefits of serendipity by forcing us to take the beaten path, dumbing us down or killing that chance we have to be more creative!
2. Internet penetration is increasing at an exponential pace and hence more people are being subjected to decision making assisted or influenced by Social Media. Whether it is about the route on your daily commute or who should be your President or Prime Minister; all of us are being subjected to filter bubbles while contributing to these decisions. The ubiquity of internet means that we are at a greater risk of making a collective mistake in making decisions!
3. In the last few years, as the propensity of political leaders to take tough decisions has reduced and the trend of referendums has gained traction. The United Kingdom (who's Westminster model is a template for democracy in several countries), has witnessed two referendums in recent past - one on Scotland remaining a part of the UK and another on UK leaving the EU. As technology - electronic voting et. al. - makes it  easier to conduct elections; direct democracy might become the norm. Some low population countries like Switzerland are already making the switch. This makes over personalised social media even scarier as biases may influence specific political decisions not just personal decision or choice of leader. 
4. In a world where we are heading towards making some very crucial decisions regarding climate change or future of robotics or spacefaring - combined with point #3, biases influenced by narrow social media networks and incomprehensibly tested personalization algorithms (technology), we might just take a wrong decision which may have far reaching impact on future generations and the very existence of mankind!