> Participating in modern e-commerce for the unbanked/underbanked
From my experience, the unbanked hardly have a chance to own cryptocurrency because they don't even have internet. In my country, MPesa is pretty much ubiquitous and that is because it doesn't need the internet to work.
Are there any ideas on how to overly SMS functionality over cryptocurrency in order to truly bank the unbanked? One idea that is bouncing in my head is a sort of agency model where agents can actually have the internet set up in physical premises and they can be the ones to set up crypto-wallets and withdraw/deposit fiat. The unbanked users can simply continue to use SMS based systems to operate their crypto-wallets.
Only problem is that they wouldn't necessarily truly own their coins - most users on HN may care about that but these folks wouldn't. If it works, it works and that's all they'd care about.
I just thought about the idea now when I read your comment so it isn't necessarily refined.
> come up with a solution which is easy to implement
This might be better phrased as, "a solution that's easy to scale". I don't think the implementation part of most valuable things is remotely easy; at least from my experience.
I must admit I haven't ever thought about these numbers but it strikes me as insanely high. How can this be explained? Is it a feature of just America or is it reproducible in other countries as well?
My reference is to majority of the time and in a sustainable way. If doing good will last, there must also be a way to sustainably compensate the actors; they also need to have their needs taken care of.
Very curious how you price this...per fix or standard monthly fee? If it's a fee, how do you deal with absurd feature requests whose development costs far outstrip what you've quoted?
I had been doing the hosting with 3rd party providers but I realised that I could actually do it better myself if I built a multi tenant platform. For the support, I was doing a lot of the support anyway so I realised I might as well do it in my own platform.
For these reasons, I've deployed my app on a Vultr server, have a couple of clients on it for my beta and so far so good.
I'm still working on the billing system for my clients so that when they renew their hosting the next time round it will be on my platform.
A couple of things I didn't want to touch include domain selling and email hosting. My platform has turn key ecommerce tools that are good enough for customers to want to pay for. Domains are still done by a 3rd party (but they're mostly cheap) and as for email, I would rather provide integration with Zoho or google apps. I don't like the headache of email deliverability; it's not worth the effort at this stage in my startup - heck, even Shopify don't touch it.
Once I'm done with billing, my next big problem to solve is logistics. I need to find a way to help my merchants ship to their customers easily as it is still a very big problem for them. It will mean partnering with a myriad of logistics providers and creating an ecosystem for just this.
On a serious note though, I don't disagree that indeed your statement above is true but because we are weak creatures, we must rely on systems. Making the world a better place is many a time correlated with some sort of validation by consumers in a market based system. I.e. solve problems/make life better or easier for someone, get rewarded by more and more patronage.
Granted, this is not always the case but majority of the time, this has been in my experience the most unbiased and reliable way to do good in the world. Simply by solving other people's problems for your and others' sustenance, you somehow also end up making the world a better place. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
I hadn't seen it that way but like @dna_polymerase pointed out above, it may very well be. I still maintain it's myopic and undeserving of a company I'd like to think of as the next facebook/amazon/google/microsoft
These are outfits that have provided tremendous value to the entire planet. My view was that Uber could have followed the same trajectory. Now, not so much anymore.
I would rather have Uber crash and burn under the stewardship of Kalanick (unlikely scenario) than have the same happen under a clueless board and a replacement CEO (likely scenario).
I said it before and you can mark my word. This decision to hire Immelt as Travis' replacement only goes further to solidify my claim. Bad decision. Very bad decision.
Mistakes are made all the time. I swear to you, there's an exaggerated amount of hate towards Travis. You'd think he's the devil. What has he done that's so bad? He simply founded a company that was super successful within a short time, with an idea that seems so easy that everyone thinks they could've done it and along the way some missteps were made.
Are you sure you would've done better? Would you like it if the plurality of stakeholders in your ecosystem vilified you in a similar way? I'm sure you wouldn't. Cut Travis some slack!
I agree 100%. It seems absolutely bonkers to me that one would leave their money on coinbase if this is the case. How is this even a debate? They will not hesitate to keep the BCC value themselves and even if they somehow magically find it in their hearts not to assume the value of BCC, why let their customers' assets go to waste?
IMO, they're neither good nor credible custodians of their customers' assets.
>whereby a small number of extraordinarily wealthy people control a massive proportion of wealth while those in poverty lack access to food security, healthcare, childcare, the basic necessities of life
May be a more important question is why those people lack those things you mentioned. If for instance Bill Gates/Jeff Bezos never existed, would it make those poor people richer? You are not addressing the problem when you simply vilify the rich as the cause of the poor's woes. Your argument is intellectually dishonest and I think it stems from unnecessary envy.
I agree. Don't forget Amazon still has so much it's doing with its current projects. Bezos has been really impressive. If you haven't read The Everything Store, you should get it - great book.
But could you expound on this part here
> Participating in modern e-commerce for the unbanked/underbanked
From my experience, the unbanked hardly have a chance to own cryptocurrency because they don't even have internet. In my country, MPesa is pretty much ubiquitous and that is because it doesn't need the internet to work.
Are there any ideas on how to overly SMS functionality over cryptocurrency in order to truly bank the unbanked? One idea that is bouncing in my head is a sort of agency model where agents can actually have the internet set up in physical premises and they can be the ones to set up crypto-wallets and withdraw/deposit fiat. The unbanked users can simply continue to use SMS based systems to operate their crypto-wallets.
Only problem is that they wouldn't necessarily truly own their coins - most users on HN may care about that but these folks wouldn't. If it works, it works and that's all they'd care about.
I just thought about the idea now when I read your comment so it isn't necessarily refined.