From Platforms to Protocol
On 9 August 2023, ONDC, a government of India backed initiative, co-organised an event with the Beckn Foundation or FIDE, a community of eminent tech enthusiasts and Antler, a venture capital firm. This multi-stakeholder event of government, tech founders and investors was held in Bengaluru, India. The event had a gathering of over hundred emerging tech startups, including Namma Yatri, a ride-hailing app based in Bengaluru. The atmosphere was brimming with ideas, connections, and a shared aspiration to build technologies that cater to a “New India.”
Globally, the growing prominence of certain platforms has raised several concerns. First, the rise of platform-based businesses have led to widespread dependency due to unequal data ownership and access. This form of data colonialism reinforces the power imbalance between the Global North and the Global South. Second, the concentration of power leads to unequal value distribution. The monetary value created by technologies like the internet and cloud computing has been disproportionately captured by a few private companies. Third, digitalization and platformization of work have given rise to a global underclass. Digital platforms thrive on a precarious and often invisible workforce that performs low-skilled platform work, and even high-skilled piecework, or ghost work. The platform workers often earn less than the legal minimum wage, and have no social security benefits, exacerbating economic inequality.
However, as part of a global counter-movement, India, along with several countries in the Global South, is challenging the dominance of major platforms. Locally, a few platforms have emerged as competitors to globally dominant platforms reclaiming significant portions of their respective digital economies, either through platform cooperativism or workers-owned technologies. In Bengaluru, the so-called Silicon Valley of India, Namma Yatri, a local mobility app has been actively resisting the monopolistic practices of major ride-hailing platforms in India, and has successfully disrupted the market.
Namma Yatri app was developed with the resources of its parent company, Juspay Technologies Limited. Juspay is a digital payment service provider that built Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for India to kickstart the fintech revolution in the country. While Juspay primarily operates in the B2B payment space, Namma Yatri functions as a B2C/B2B2C venture addressing large-scale mobility challenges. On 1st March, 2024, Namma Yatri officially separated from Juspay to become an independent entity under Moving Tech Innovation Limited.
In my conversation with Vimal Kumar, founder of Juspay and Namma Yatri, he acknowledged that while companies like Uber have figured out certain aspects of the ride-hailing business, a different approach is needed, particularly in how drivers are treated. Vimal stated that, “Enabling the driver was a gap and we are filling it,” indicating that the driver-centric approach is essential for creating a more balanced ecosystem. Namma Yatri is, thus, a leap from the monopolistic platform-centric to a democratic protocol-based model.
A Community Initiative by the Drivers
“Namma” meaning “ours” in Kannada, represents the spirit of Bengaluru, Karnataka. Namma Yatri was envisioned as the drivers’ app emerging from the collective demand of union drivers. The Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union (ARDU) in Bengaluru collaborated with Juspay to develop the app in August 2022. Unlike the traditional platforms, the terms and conditions of the app, like the fare structure, were not imposed; rather they were sent for “review” to ARDU drivers. In fact, Namma Yatri adheres to government-regulated fare pricing in Bengaluru, ensuring transparency. Rudramurthy, the union leader of ARDU, publicly advocated for Namma Yatri on his LinkedIN posts stating that “Bengaluru auto-rickshaw drivers are entering into a digital age first in the world through Namma Yatri” and even referred to it as their “pride” and “contribution to the society by the drivers community.” App-based drivers across Bengaluru, who felt deceived by the big players like Uber and Ola, began recommending Namma Yatri to fellow drivers and customers. Without the need for elaborate marketing campaigns, drivers’ support enabled Namma Yatri to capture 25% of market share within two years of its launch.
With the support of the various state governments and driver unions, Namma Yatri has now expanded beyond Bengaluru by rebranding itself as Kerala Sawaari in Kochi, Mana Yatri in Hyderabad, Odisha Yatri in Bhubaneshwar, and Yatri Saathi in Kolkata. Additionally, Namma Yatri has launched a Mahila Sakti (Women Empowerment) initiative to support and encourage women auto-rickshaw drivers, providing them with opportunities to earn a livelihood through app-based work. Namma Yatri aims to promote cooperative principles through drivers engagement, and rebuild the trust that was once lost within the drivers community with the global platforms.
Financial Sustainability with Zero Commission
Namma Yatri charges “zero commission” whereas the traditional platforms charge a commission of 20-30% per ride from app-based drivers. Namma Yatri does not mediate payments. Instead, drivers receive 100% of the payment directly from customers. According to Magizhan Selvan, the CEO of Namma Yatri, it is a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, and not a traditional platform. To ensure a sustainable revenue stream, Namma Yatri introduced a subscription-based model. A subscription fee of INR 25 per day (approximately $0.30) was set to cover the app’s operational costs. The idea is to build a cost-effective technology solution that reduces the burden on the drivers. Feeling the competitive pressure led by Namma Yatri, Ola, Uber, and Rapido, the major ride-hailing platforms in India are now moving towards the subscription-based SaaS model.
The traditional platforms are categorised as “aggregators” under the recently launched Code on Social Security by the Ministry of Labour and Employment in India. The definition of aggregators covers digital intermediaries or a marketplace. Namma Yatri, however, claims to be a facilitator and not an intermediary owing to the direct payment model between customers and drivers. Interestingly, Namma Yatri currently benefits from this regulatory grey area that exempts it from paying Goods and Services Tax (GST).
Shared Digital Infrastructure based on the Principle of Openness
Namma Yatri embraces an open principle model. First, it has enabled open-source code. Namma Yatri’s developer team actively maintains and updates Github, where anyone can inspect and contribute to the app’s code-base. Open source code enables transparency, dismantling the opaqueness of the algorithmic black box often found in the platform work industry. Second, Namma Yatri provides a real-time open data dashboard on its website that not only shows the cumulative number of rides completed, searches and drivers’ earnings but also the historical trends. Third, Namma Yatri has prioritized cost optimization since its inception, achieving a significant drop in cloud & map costs to INR 0.50 per ride (approximately $0.06) by experimenting with ClickHouse and Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM). Noticing these developments, in July 2024, Google slashed its pricing structure of Maps APIs by 70% for Indian developers and also started accepting payments for Google Maps subscription in Indian rupees as against US dollars. Recently, Google invested in Namma Yatri during Pre-series A funding round, likely driven by its own strategic interests.
Lastly, Namma Yatri app is built on an open source Beckn protocol under the Government of India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) initiative, which seeks to decentralize platform monopolies and provide equitable market access to small and local players. ONDC goes beyond the existing platform-centric model. The buyer and seller can use the same platform or application to be digitally visible and complete a business transaction. For instance, email is a protocol that allows multiple service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, or hotmail to communicate with each other. In other words, a person with a Gmail account can send mail to a person with an hotmail email address, but this is not possible in the case of Facebook or Telegram since platforms are not interoperable by design. In a similar fashion, existing mobility platforms like Uber and Ola require their users to exclusively use their platforms to avail the ride-hailing services. A customer using Uber cannot avail rides from Ola drivers, and vice-versa. However, ONDC allows apps like Namma Yatri to have both seller and buyer side to ensure interoperability with other apps, given that they follow the ONDC protocol. Considering these developments, both Uber and Amazon are now exploring integration with ONDC.
The ongoing developments in Bengaluru’s mobility space highlight how alternative commercial models like Namma Yatri can challenge dominant platforms and push for more inclusive tech ecosystems. However, it’s still too early to call this model truly democratic. The openness may appear transparent at first glance, but that doesn’t automatically translate to accessibility—often referred to as “openwashing.” In the past, rifts have emerged between the union and the company, raising concerns about the participatory nature of its governance. Additionally, open-source infrastructure, while pitched as a public good, often ends up being a cost-cutting strategy for tech companies where the underlying motive remains profitability. The Government of India is backing this model on one hand, but also planning to launch its own nationwide platform cooperative on the other, essentially becoming a competitor in the market. At the same time, major platform players have little incentive to join the ONDC network. Most importantly, there are no significant labor policy reforms for platform workers at the core of these so-called technological developments. This points towards a lack of coherence in the government’s regulatory approach. While the future of platforms remains in flux, how this protocol will unfold is yet to be seen!
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