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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

#41

Post by w1ntermute »

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

How many of those people are using the internet? How about for the rest of Africa? And how much ecommerce will they generate compared to other markets? That's the driving question when Paypal and other companies decide whether they want to take the risks inherently associated with operating in Nigeria and/or the rest of Africa.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#42

Post by markessien »

wybo wrote: post #24

Maybe this is not a very popular response, but am I alone in thinking that the collective responsibility for this rests, to some extent at least, indeed with all Nigerians? In that as citizens they should support politicians that take 419/spam/fraud issues seriously? Were there no collective responsibility, then all arguments of the kind that the West owes/owed something to Africa for its colonial misdeeds, would eve…

Just like collective responsibility for the Iraq and Afganistan wars rests with all Americans?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#43

Post by cturner »

markessien wrote: post #4

What I dislike about the attitude of many businesses towards Nigeria is the way they just dismiss the country with a wave of their hand. Sure, there is some scam coming out of the country, but some guy just looks at the numbers and then sends an email "Block Nigeria". And we're not talking of some small site, we're talking of one of the the biggest payment processors in the world. The country is the biggest market in…

    What I dislike about the attitude of many businesses
    towards Nigeria is the way they just dismiss the
    country with a wave of their hand.
I've thought about it before, and wish it was easier to do and that there was more of it.

I get lots of ssh connection attempts and spam from the third world. I don't regularly communicate with anyone there. It would fabulous if there was a way I could tell my servers to block traffic from vast ranges of IP addresses that are known to be located outside of the first world.

Some people wouldn't be able to email me or read my website, but it would be a good tradeoff for me.

    Think of it this way: imagine that paypal suddenly
    decided to exclude Arizona from using Paypal because
    it has a higher statistical likelihood of fraud.
They're an independent business. They're free to choose who they deal with.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#44

Post by jacquesm »

markessien wrote: post #22
yummyfajitas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal, Google adwords, and many other services, do use statistical predictors to determine what is likely to be fraud. Many innocent people get flagged by them. This is a known and accepted risk of using such services. The fact is, if Paypal were not permitted to statistically discriminate, they wouldn't exist. Is it really a moral travesty that they are using nation of origin as one of the predictors?

They are not doing a statistical determination. There is no algorithm behind it that indicates when a country is safe to do business with. They have just switched off Nigeria. There is no appeal. There is no review.

While I very much sympathize with your viewpoint I've been peripherally involved in analyzing a bunch of e-commerce traffic and I'm sorry to report that of all the charges coming from Nigeria over a substantial period of time there was not a single one that was actually legitimate.

I'm sure there is at least one person in Nigeria that goes against the flow here and that is an honest person simply trying to get by but with the odds that bad you really can't fault the conclusion that Nigerian traffic so risky that the risks far outweigh the benefits.

Merchants typically run a very fine line between operating their business and having their accounts yanked due to 'excessive fraud', any measures they can take to protect themselves from this happening will be implemented without any remorse, it's a survival thing.

For the record, yes, we block Nigerian transactions, and several other countries besides.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#45

Post by microarchitect »

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

He said 'internet population', not population. Do you realise that 70% of the country is below the poverty line?

It seems like I'm missing something, so I have a question for those who upvoted this comment. Do you all seriously think that the OP should set up an "african paypal" just because the real paypal is broken for him?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#46

Post by microarchitect »

varjag wrote: post #20
markessien wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If paypal blocks Nigeria now...how will they ever know that payment fraud from Nigeria is decreasing?

PayPal isn't in this business to do justice. Nigeria's market size to risk factor is extremely bad, and perception of it generally is not improving. There is no point for them to absorbing the risk. Any given day I can dive into my spam folder and see at least a dozen of Nigerian scam offers, perhaps that explains the general perception. While on the dawn of the Web there was a number of places deemed to be sources o…

> It's long overdue for Nigeria to get their act together.

What do you mean by get their act together? In my experience living in a third world country, it's hard enough to get the establishment to prosecute violent crimes. So I'd say as an ordinary citizen it's pretty much impossible to get anyone who matters to take electronic crime seriously.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#47

Post by dstein »

mycroftiv wrote: post #14
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.

As I interpret the sentiment, the author is indicating that he is writing simply to express his frustration at being an innocent victim of collective punishment. He is stating that he is aware of the causes of the situation, and that there may be ways to engage in productive change, but neither of those things changes the basic personal injustice he is directly experiencing. In other words, he is not attempting to ma…

he is not attempting to make a counterargument... he is simply very irritated

Sounds like he'll fit right in with most of the Internet.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#48

Post by microarchitect »

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.

So what do you suggest an ordinary citizen should do? Don a cape and black mask and hunt the scammers down?!

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#49

Post by cturner »

barrkel wrote: post #29
yummyfajitas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal, Google adwords, and many other services, do use statistical predictors to determine what is likely to be fraud. Many innocent people get flagged by them. This is a known and accepted risk of using such services. The fact is, if Paypal were not permitted to statistically discriminate, they wouldn't exist. Is it really a moral travesty that they are using nation of origin as one of the predictors?

It's unjust, particularly because "being a Nigerian in Nigeria" is not a condition that most people in that condition can simply elect to remove themselves from. Consider the situation from a Rawlsian veil of ignorance perspective.

This is a broader issue than access to Paypal.

There's lots of reasons it's not great to be a Nigerian in Nigeria - fixed elections, corruption, violence, low standard of living, tension between the north and south, nasty tropical diseases, relatively lower education opportunities, weak arts community, flowover from ethnic tension in neighbouring states.

In the scale of things, concern over ability to make internet payments is probably pretty low, and a concern that would be pressing only to a small elite in the country.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#50

Post by wybo »

markessien wrote: post #42
wybo wrote: post #24

Maybe this is not a very popular response, but am I alone in thinking that the collective responsibility for this rests, to some extent at least, indeed with all Nigerians? In that as citizens they should support politicians that take 419/spam/fraud issues seriously? Were there no collective responsibility, then all arguments of the kind that the West owes/owed something to Africa for its colonial misdeeds, would eve…

Just like collective responsibility for the Iraq and Afganistan wars rests with all Americans?

Indeed, orthogonal to the extent to which those wars are bad on overall (and the collective responsibility of the Dutch and Brits for slave trade in the past, which we can all agree on, was a shame... (am Dutch, to take it home...))
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