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Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

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Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#31

Post by BoppreH »

piramida wrote: post #19

Not only Nigeria, may I point out that most countries of the world, besides the very few top ones (US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Eurozone countries) are in about the same position regarding e-commerce and web acceptance in general. You can't start a paypal account, you can't pay online with locally issued credit cards, and you generally are prejudiced as a criminal. Which must be contributing to the online crime c…

"Paypal won't let me register and account, so I'll start mass spamming scams online."

I'm not sure I follow.

Also, I'm Brazilian and Paypal accepted my locally issued credit card just fine.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#32

Post by [deleted] »

rmc wrote: post #16
markessien wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, how many paypal killers have been created? Now you want to go create a paypal killer from an african country with a low internet population, and expect big sites to support this? I think "fuck off" is an appropriate answer to people suggesting this - it's just not going to happen! It's obvious that it won't happen, so anyone suggesting it...just doesn't get it, I guess.

Small population? Nigeria has 180 million people. The rest of Africa has similar paypal issues, and a population of 600 million people

[deleted]

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#33

Post by drdaeman »

BoppreH wrote: post #28
MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Yes, browsing via a proxy or VPN while not in the US is just common practice for plenty of folks. Apart from fraud flagging, the sites that geo-IP for language settings is very annoying. (Seriously, the IETF actually gets Accept-Language right, it's actually implemented, and then ignored?? Sigh.) Google Chrome takes the cake here though. They use your IP to determine the install language. Even if you download the US…

It works well for normal people. And these options can be configured from the "under the hood" preferences tab.

What's "normal"?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#35

Post by _delirium »

BoppreH wrote: post #31
piramida wrote: post #19

Not only Nigeria, may I point out that most countries of the world, besides the very few top ones (US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Eurozone countries) are in about the same position regarding e-commerce and web acceptance in general. You can't start a paypal account, you can't pay online with locally issued credit cards, and you generally are prejudiced as a criminal. Which must be contributing to the online crime c…

"Paypal won't let me register and account, so I'll start mass spamming scams online." I'm not sure I follow. Also, I'm Brazilian and Paypal accepted my locally issued credit card just fine.

> "Paypal won't let me register and account, so I'll start mass spamming scams online."

Something like: a bunch of reasonably well educated people with internet access, unable to participate in legitimate web commerce, are more likely to pursue illegitimate ways to make money online. Sort of the same problem you had in the 1990s with a bunch of viruses and scams coming out of Eastern Europe.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#36

Post by markessien »

damoncali wrote: post #34

This will all go away when Nigerians stop the fraud. It's really that simple (or that complex, depending on your point of view). Like many of Africa's problems, this one is systemic.

How many percentage of internet users from Nigeria are scamming? It's a small minority, probably similar to the number of Americans sending spam emails. But Nigeria can be simply cancelled from the system, because it's a low income country. It's not a systemic problem, and it's not an 'Africa problem'. It's a choice by paypal.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#37

Post by jacquesm »

piramida wrote: post #19

Not only Nigeria, may I point out that most countries of the world, besides the very few top ones (US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Eurozone countries) are in about the same position regarding e-commerce and web acceptance in general. You can't start a paypal account, you can't pay online with locally issued credit cards, and you generally are prejudiced as a criminal. Which must be contributing to the online crime c…

> Which must be contributing to the online crime coming from this countries, since if you are already treated as a thief, why not just be one? :)

There is absolutely no logic to that statement.

Not being allowed to do business on a site because your country has a statistically high incidence of fraud is not the same as being treated as a thief.

Being treated as a thief would mean to be wrongfully prosecuted for a crime you did not commit, not being allowed to do business in the way that you prefer is not a punishment, it's an inconvenience, even if it is a substantial one.

'blame the merchant' seems to be the approach taken by most companies that are in the payment chain, our payment processor actually blocks a whole slew of countries and it might lose us the occasional sale but at least we get to stay in business.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#38

Post by MichaelGG »

BoppreH wrote: post #28
MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Yes, browsing via a proxy or VPN while not in the US is just common practice for plenty of folks. Apart from fraud flagging, the sites that geo-IP for language settings is very annoying. (Seriously, the IETF actually gets Accept-Language right, it's actually implemented, and then ignored?? Sigh.) Google Chrome takes the cake here though. They use your IP to determine the install language. Even if you download the US…

It works well for normal people. And these options can be configured from the "under the hood" preferences tab.

You're incorrect on both accounts.

First, if my OS and browser preferences are stating English (or any language for that matter), why should the IP come into play? "Normal" people will already be using a localized OS and hence will send an Accept-Language with their preferred language (and perhaps country).

Second, while you can go try to navigate the "Under the Hood" section in another language to switch languages, the default Google search uses "{google:baseURL}", which gets hard coded to the localized version someone though you should be forced to use.

You actually have to delete the default search in the omnibar and create a new one, manually specifying the Google site you wish to use. There is no quick option to say "no, your silly auto-detection is broken, use the language I'm specifying for UI and search".

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#39

Post by kakaylor »

rmc wrote: post #16
markessien wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, how many paypal killers have been created? Now you want to go create a paypal killer from an african country with a low internet population, and expect big sites to support this? I think "fuck off" is an appropriate answer to people suggesting this - it's just not going to happen! It's obvious that it won't happen, so anyone suggesting it...just doesn't get it, I guess.

Small population? Nigeria has 180 million people. The rest of Africa has similar paypal issues, and a population of 600 million people

I think the bigger issue is GDP and GDP per capita for both Nigeria and Africa as a whole:

Nigeria GDP (PPP): $170bil

Nigeria GDP per capita: $1754

I can understand why e-commerce companies might just choose to blacklist an entire country. There isn't much of a financial incentive to expend the resources for that small of a market.

I am not trying to comment on whether this is justifiable or not, but that is the reality of the situation.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#40

Post by tylerarnold »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

I'm having the exact same issue while traveling in Romania.

Romania is a part of the European Union as well. It's incredibly frustrating just to sit there and get "unable to process."

What a crappy error message too. How about "this is a suspicious transaction. Please call GoDaddy or join a LiveChat session to continue."

It really feels second class. Fuck indeed!

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