The last section in the article speaks about RuPay but isn't this just one of the many implementations of UPI[1] ? In any case, imo, it is the start of the end for the duopoly and it is my hope that an truly open standard and protocol (unlike UPI) emerges (and no, the blockchain is not it -- crypto would just be accidental complexity in any potential solution).
RuPay isn't an implementation of UPI - it's an alternate payment network like STAR etc in the US. As a matter of fact, it's only recently that RuPay and UPI were connected:
From 8 June 2022, RBI allowed the linking of RuPay credit cards with India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In the absence of a physical card, customers can use their credit limit through for transactions.
RuPay is debit/credit card as domestic alternative to Visa and MasterCard, while UPI is the digital payments platform. Both technology stacks are owned and managed by NCPI (National Payments Corporation of India is an Umbrella Organisation that facilitates services like UPI Payments, Bharat BillPay, RuPay Cards, FASTag, NACH, etc.).
I replied here earlier with my own pet project to essentially say that you don't need a whole lot of complexity to solve for QOL improvements in the console but was promptly downvoted, I thought that was fair and so deleted my comment.
However, now I do feel the need to say this - you really do not need a whole lot to enhance your productivity on the python REPL by a large factor, if you take advantage of some simple built-in facilities:
A. Understand the use of the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable. This alone is a big advantage. It'll allow you to you automatically import often needed modules and declare helpers that you always seem to need.
B. Once you've gotten used to that, Wrap the built-in module code (or I presume pyrepl) to add the little things that you need and point PYTHONSTARTUP to it
C. Enjoy
At the risk of being downvoted again (not that it matters, so won't delete this time), here again, shameless plug - https://github.com/lonetwin/pythonrc
One aspect of this is knowledge is part of intelligence and lifespans influence shared/communal knowledge.
I don't think anyone claims that early humans were not as intelligent as we are now but the weakest link in the knowledge of how to effectively use levers or roll logs, or not (metaphorically) 'reinvent the wheel', would have been the eldest members in the community.
Except for the part where the company gets outcompeted and goes bankrupt.
And no, we cannot just outlaw competition. Having an efficient economy is important and valuable because it allows us to have a higher standard of living while putting in less work.
They get outcompeted because worker-owned companies aren't allowed to be leeches. You can't have your workers own negative shares.
But, many companies (especially those really competitive ones!) just... don't make money. It's easy to be a big disrupter like Uber when you make -500 million dollars a year for 15 years. Naturally that wouldn't when you aren't on capital welfare.
To the point made by the GP (and others here) about how useful the book is, I must add that I got a whole lot more from this small book than some other well known and oft suggested titles (like Clean Code, POSA etc).
My most recent peeve about the matter is that Kent Beck"s "Tidy, Fisrt?" was apparently motivated partly in response to this book and yet it falls way too short to matching up. Half of thst book is way too simplistic and almost patronizing and the other is handwavy abstract notions too scared to touch reality lest it spoil the narrative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface