Distance, Discourse and Doing

On structural analysis as a way to manage guilt

 

A few days ago, Deepinder Goyal posted a thread on X defending Zomato’s business model. Like everyone has pointed out, it was tone-deaf in places, self-serving in others, and what followed was the predictable pile-on. But this post isn’t about that. This post is about my response to it and unpacking what I learned about myself in the process.

I’m pretty good at finding the frame, naming the dynamic and arriving at a crisp, pithy take.

“Capitalism does capitalist things.”

“He didn’t create the brken labour market, he just built a business on top of it.”

“Zomato isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom.”

These feel true, and might even be true but what does it says about me?

Thankfully, I have friends who push back, and we have enough trust that we can debate without descending into the algorithmic acrimony that doing so on a public timeline would involve. One friend said that labour is cheap, it’s our strategic advantage in India, and the system has always been broken. My immediate reaction was: why is he offering an undergraduate argument dressed up as realism? I was screaming on the inside: take the red pill, bro. But at some point in the discussion, I had to ask myself whether I had actually taken it.

Being good at analysis—thinking you can see the system, name the forces, trace the historical arc—makes one feel aware. But does being aware mean one isn’t asleep? Because if I can name the problem as structural, it lets me off the hook for being a part of it. Being able to explain everything also excuses everything.

And my truth is this: I use these apps. I live in Bangalore. My life has been made easier by the same labour arbitrage I am busy critiquing. The delivery guy shows up at my door. I tip well, feel the awkwardness of the exchange, close the door and go back to my life, conscience assuaged. But being honest about complicity isn’t the same as doing something about it. It can just be a way of managing guilt enough to keep going.

“Tip well, be kind, delete the app,” I joked in one of the chats. A wry update to Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out.” But I haven’t deleted the app and I probably won’t.

I work in philanthropy and social change. The whole job is supposedly about making things better—supporting and building capacity, shifting conditions, playing the long game. And I believe in that work. I do.

But what I’m beginning to notice is that in my personal life, with friends, in these late-night chats about the state of things, I choose resignation more easily than I’d like. If everything is too broken to fix, I can keep sharpening the hot take.

So here’s what I’m left with at the start of this new year, filled with old discussions and familiar debates: what would it mean to be in the mess, not above it? To do something with the seeing, rather than letting the seeing be the end?

Admitting it is a start but caring has to mean more than seeing clearly.

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Originally published on Substack on 5 January 2026. Read on Substack →