While the short-term economic losses may not have been too high (and may have been exaggerated by some players), the bigger issue is the long-term business and investors’ confidence of doing business in a country where the perception of economic default has already kept investors at bay.
One may offer some sympathy to the [Pakistan] authorities’ decision to degrade digital connectivity to ensure mob-control and narrative-building, but such a measure is at best a tactic, not a strategy, to defuse political volatility.
The internet is a necessity in the modern world and the socioeconomic impact of shutting it down cannot be ignored. The situation is that those at the helm of power –in the government or other agencies – continue to use stale tactics to control the masses where the majority are born and have grown up during the internet and the social media age.
The graver issue is that at the policy level digital connectivity is still perceived as a privilege that can be taken away at will, not as a right. In this context, to reassure the public and restore the digital investors’ confidence, it is paramount for a government to establish some ground rules as to which law-enforcement/national-security situations credibly warrant digital contingencies such as the one currently in force.