Topic: How micro payments can help to alleviate global poverty - page 2. (Read 309 times)

People in Africa have to be creative if they want to survive, and what is quite normal for people in the US or the EU is a big challenge for them. It's been a few years since I first saw mobile charging stations in Africa, and recently the topic was discussed in a Bitcoin discussion.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60679643

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It's easy to say, but I think it's much harder to do given the level of political corruption and the attitude of most of the world towards Africa. It is obviously in someone's interest that Africa remains an undeveloped continent for as long as possible, and that it can serve as a dumping ground for various waste (including that from nuclear reactors).

Giving people the ability to be more efficient in payment methods will not solve the problem because people should first be provided with normal living conditions, the right to free primary and secondary school, and fair and democratic elections. A poor man is still poor no matter what payment methods are made available to him, and a more than obvious example is El Salvador, where not much has changed, regardless of the fact that everyone can use Bitcoin in everyday life completely legally.

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Now, as I said, centralized payment systems are much easier, no matter what we simplify. Giving them a centralized system based on Bitcoin is not really a step forward (not your keys, not your coins). And if we add on top the fact that Bitcoin comes with various fees (and I talk about conversion from/to fiat) and its price is fluctuating a lot... I am not sure it will help them. They don't afford to lose any penny.
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It is a hard question to solve without centralization. I am a fan of decentralizing, but decentralized systems are also really hard to understand and get access to, for many many people in the 1st world, let alone for other countries.

The solution can be bridging both worlds.

Do you know any projects working with this mindset?

Two problems
- Do you think somebody that lives off the land in the poorest regions of Africa will suddenly be able to do all these jobs and somehow even thus he has been capable of this he hasn't yet moved to the capital where he could have for sure got a far better pad job than living on the land?
- What makes you think that by simply getting a payment method the market for transition services for example will be able to absorb a few million people?

You probably know what happened to all the freelancer work and how revenues for the easy jobs have gone down the drain, if you have basic skills you're competing with hundreds and thousands for every single 2-5$ job that takes you all day long. No guy that has planted corn for 20 years and had not seen a computer before will be able to suddenly excel in python.


Nope, the first thing is to teach them how to fish, then they go work and earn money to buy a line and hook for themselves as nobody is going to donate 1 million laptops good enough for video editing like that, then they can start on their own. And we're back to square one.

I think this would be an interesting startup idea. Micropayments can really reduce poverty by allowing people to make small purchases with the easy interface of their mobile phones. Also, micropayments will help increase business as it makes transactions easier and enables global trade. Unfair payment structures result in high prices for downloading digital content which we may one day grab ourselves. Micropayments have the potential to change the world more than we can imagine.

You know.... a lot of these people has gone through a lot of hardship in their lives.. and they do not have all these petty issues that some people in 1st countries have. If you are lucky enough to have power in your building, then you must provide a service to the community around you. (obviously at a fee)

They share transport to the nearest town to buy food and to charge their phones, if the Spaza shop (Tuck shop) offers that service and to buy airtime. Some even provide a charging station or kiosk to charge your phone, but it is very expensive ...compared to 1st world countries.

The culture is a lot different to what some people are used to... so sharing your bed or car or household appliances... are not strange to them. (They also have something called "Black tax".... where the one with the job... will support any family member or members as a kind of payback for what was given to them) ....very interesting concept.

In any way.... they make a plan, no matter what their situation is... borrow...beg or steal... they get it done.    Oh, to answer your last question.... yes a lot of 1st world countries are dumping very good phones in 3rd world countries... so the phone quality are getting better and better over time. 

Making payments with Bitcoin is possible on every phone, that has a browser. I have an old Nokia from 2014. It's not a smartphone, but it has a browser and it's theoretically possible to login inside crypto exchange accounts or online wallets, copy and paste a BTC address and click on the "Send BTC" button. Second hand smartphones will become cheaper in the future.
Phones that don't have a browser are pretty much obsolete and out of the market at this point. I don't know about other ways to make ALL phones Bitcoin friendly. Some crypto companies are implementing a "pay via SMS" feature. Perhaps this might help for mass crypto adoption.

While Android development allows one make his tools compatible with (very) old devices, those old devices may not even support the newest Google Play services, hence no need to spend the time.
There are many phone makers who sell pretty cheap devices having not too old Android - there the devs could work by making apps much less resource hungry (!) to acomodate to the cheap devices.
And if we discuss about "dumb-phones", then the apps are flashed with the OS, afaik, hence the devs cannot do anything.

So from what I see, it's not that much the devs can do, even with "proper tools". Still, paying more attention to the resources would be nice.

In my freelancing journey, I have found it to be increasingly difficult to perform tasks without appropriate devices, this would make it a challenge to accommodate users without smartphones, and this might just be a lesser issue.
The current platforms available like upwork, fiverr and the rest could be optimized to accommodate users from 3rd world countries better. And more skilled users should get paid adequately like their counterparts from other regions doing the same work.

Properly equipping the high skilled users with adequate tools, would empower them to create better systems for the less exposed citizens.

- Jay -

That's interesting--are you saying there are places in the community where people can go to charge their phones with solar or gas-powered generators or that individuals own and use them?  Either way, it sounds like the places you're talking about don't have the most reliable power grid, if there's a grid at all.

You described the people you want to help as basically subsistence farmers, living off the land.  If that's true, I doubt they'd be able to do any of those tasks if they haven't had much of an education.  That said, I don't have a clue about what level of education they have; I'm just making an assumption.  I also seriously doubt anyone in a first world country is going to provide steady, reliable work like translation or spell-checking to strangers in a third world country.  That's just reality--especially since there are tools for both of those things readily available on the internet.

And if those farmers in Africa receive a micropayment of bitcoin, is there a good way for them to convert it to their local currency or to spend it?  Most exchanges that deal in fiat have minimum transaction amounts, which might be prohibitive in a scenario like you've proposed.

By the way, don't most people use smartphones nowadays, as opposed to the old-school flip phones?  I've read about MPesa in the context of the gambling problem among youth in Kenya, and from what I gather they're using their phones to place bets.  You can't do that easily with anything other than a smartphone.

I think the problem isn't about the micro payments, but the third party platform that would bring together between the employer and employee. Most people especially third world countries doesn't have good mindset and lack of technology, so they're just think "working" is only related with local job. Even they ever work as a freelancer, there's no guarantee he will work for a long time since the employer usually only give one project. After that he will become an unemployment again.

I use centralized payment methods (Revolut), I use mobile banking, and I use Bitcoin.
Sending money through centralized system is very easy, since the centralized system can always find simple ways to get in touch with its other users, and if a bad transaction happens, they can even undo it, since.. it's centralized. Compared to that, mobile banking is already overly complicated (even card payment is).

Bitcoin is - or should be - on the same level as mobile banking. You know the recipient addresses and you send an amount.
LN should be like credit card.

Now, as I said, centralized payment systems are much easier, no matter what we simplify. Giving them a centralized system based on Bitcoin is not really a step forward (not your keys, not your coins). And if we add on top the fact that Bitcoin comes with various fees (and I talk about conversion from/to fiat) and its price is fluctuating a lot... I am not sure it will help them. They don't afford to lose any penny.

I travel for work a lot and I have worked on contract in 3rd world countries where poverty are very high. In most of these countries and specifically in the more rural areas, people are very poor and they lack the infrastructure and resources to have access to Banking services and/or the Internet.    (Some people even struggle to get electricity and clean water)

Now, most of these people rely on the land to provide them with an income... and they live in a constant "survival" mode.. where they live from hand to mouth.

Now, in Africa I have seen people using cellphones to make digital payments using a centralized payment method, called MPESA ...so even with very limited resources, people are still able to make transactions. (They charge cellphones with small solar panels and/or petrol generators for the community)

We (1st world countries) should find ways to make payments on Bitcoin easier and more user friendly, so that payment on ALL phones can be possible. (not just fancy smart phones)  

We should also find ways for people with those phones to execute tasks that will enable 1st world countries to pay those people with "cheap" micro payments. (Lightning Network) ...example : translation services / typing / spell checking / sorting of data etc...etc.

Let's brainstorm ideas to develop software that will tap into the opportunities that will enable micro payments on a global scale, so that we can pull in a forgotten section of the global economy.  

Do not give them fish... rather provide the hook ...line... sinker... and they will fish for themselves.