Potential Annual Savings from Banning Foreign Digital Platforms in Bangladesh

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  High data consumption on social apps: Video and multimedia use on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube drive enormous data traffic. For instance, with ~53M Facebook users and ~34M YouTube users, even modest usage (e.g. ~0.5–1 hour per day at 480p video quality, roughly 0.3–0.5 GB/hour) would yield billions of GB per year. Rough estimates suggest Bangladeshis may consume on the order of 10–12 billion GB/year on these apps combined.
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  Cost of mobile data: Bangladesh enjoys very cheap data – about Tk.33 (~USD 0.32) per GB (2022). At ~$0.30/GB, 10 billion GB of data would cost roughly $3.0 billion. (If the actual volume is 8–12B GB, the cost is $2.4–$3.6B.) Banning the apps could eliminate a large fraction of this traffic on cellular networks and possibly on fixed broadband. Even if half the traffic shifts to local content or local apps, saving several billion USD in data costs is plausible.
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  Net bandwidth savings: In summary, removing these apps could save on the order of $2–3 billion per year in network data charges alone (mobile + fixed). This estimate is based on user counts and typical usage patterns, multiplied by the local data price. (Actual savings depend on how much traffic truly vanishes or shifts to local services.) Even accounting for caching, the avoided mobile data expenditures are on the order of a few billion USD annually.

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  Total digital ad spend: Bangladeshi businesses spend heavily on online ads. According to industry analysis, "Digital Advertising Spend in the country… is expected to grow… to US$1,284.3 million in 2023" (from $1,181.0M in 2022). At ~8–9% annual growth, this suggests ~$1.5B by 2025. By comparison, traditional media spending (TV, print, etc.) is smaller and growing more slowly. In other words, nearly $1–1.5 billion per year flows into digital advertising in Bangladesh.
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  Platform breakdown: While precise splits are not public, typical shares can be assumed. Globally Google (including Search and YouTube) captures roughly half to two-thirds of digital ad spend, with Facebook/Instagram taking a large share of the rest. If we assume about 60% of Bangladeshi digital ad budgets go to Google (including YouTube ads) and 30% to Meta (Facebook/Instagram), then roughly $0.9B is paid to Google/YouTube annually and $0.45B to Facebook/Instagram (in recent years).
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  Potential savings: If these platforms were banned, Bangladeshi advertisers could no longer spend on them. In pure dollar terms, this would "save" roughly the entire outflow. Conservatively, we estimate on the order of $1.0–1.5 billion per year in ad expenditures would be retained domestically.

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  How caches work: Cache servers (part of CDNs) locally store frequently accessed content (videos, images, etc.) to speed delivery and reduce international bandwidth demand. For example, when a Bangladeshi user watches a YouTube video, it may be streamed from a local cache rather than across a long-distance link.
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  Operation and maintenance costs: Running cache servers entails capital and operating expenses. Companies must lease data center rack space, power, cooling, network connectivity, and hire technical staff. Overall, a moderately sized cache deployment can cost on the order of hundreds of thousands to a few million USD per year in aggregate.
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  Cost savings if banned: If foreign platforms were banned, these dedicated caches would become redundant. Bangladesh could decommission the cache servers (ending rental fees and power usage). The total savings here is modest compared to data and ad savings – perhaps low millions USD per year at most.

Beyond the quantifiable economic savings, banning foreign social media platforms could yield significant social and developmental benefits for Bangladesh. These include improvements to public well-being, education, and social cohesion:

Below is an analysis of what Bangladesh could achieve by redirecting an annual $4-5 billion into a single, government-led "National Development Fund," and the cumulative impact over ten years ($40-50 billion).

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  SMEs and digital marketing: Small and medium enterprises form the backbone of Bangladesh's economy. Studies show that over 75% of Bangladeshi SMEs use social media for marketing and customer engagement. These tools allow even small shops to reach customers at low cost. One survey found firms using social media report 20–30% more new customers and up to 25% sales growth attributable to online marketing.
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  Potential harms of a ban: Banning Facebook/WhatsApp/YouTube would significantly disrupt SMEs and digital entrepreneurs. Companies that rely on Facebook pages or Instagram shops would lose key sales channels. Digital agencies and freelancers focusing on Google Ads/Facebook Ads would see their work vanish. In the short term, customer outreach would be constrained.
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  Job market implications: Tens of thousands are employed in IT and telecom sectors in Bangladesh. Jobs would be lost in allied areas (marketing, media, content). Skill development in digital marketing and e-commerce might stall. Conversely, demand for local app developers might rise somewhat, but likely not enough to offset the losses in digital sectors.