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Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

oonwoye.com

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Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#61

Post by brudgers »

w1ntermute wrote: post #41
rmc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>"how much ecommerce will they generate compared to other markets?"

For a company the size of Paypal, not enough to justify the political risks entailed by entering those markets. But startups are not the size of Paypal. 1% of Nigerians is still 1.6 million people. Paypal can afford to cut out large portions of the world. The company that solves the problem will have an advantage.

Considering the degree to which internet entrepreneurship has been established in Nigeria (even if exploitive), the construction of WACS and its high bandwith connection to Europe, its oil reserves and its native English speaking population, Nigeria has some real strategic advantages.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cable_map18.svg

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#62

Post by cturner »

todayiamme wrote: post #58
cturner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 traff…

It won't work. The scam artists and the spammers will learn how to spoof their IP address. Or, just start using VPNs and proxies. It doesn't matter to them as they will find a way around, precisely because their livelihood depends on it. On the other hand, the genuine users will be the one who suffer. They simply won't have the inclination to spend their entire time trying to engage in subterfuge against your "defens…

You can't spoof an IP address and expect to get the traffic back.

They could use VPNs and proxies, and that would shift the focus from the third world to VPNs and proxies in the first world.

If those operators don't comply, you could have them IP filtered also. But also - we have better options for dealing with nasty traffic when the originating IP is in the first world.

    It doesn't matter to them as they will find a way
    around, precisely because their livelihood depends
    on it.
That's no more true than it would be to say that having high levels of organised crime is inevitable because people's livelihoods depend on it. It may be true that it's inevitable that you'll have a little bit, but not that it will be universal.

    On the other hand, the genuine users will be the one
    who suffer.
True, but genuine users suffer from the current mess. There's a culture of nastiness about the internet. That wild west culture. I think it will be civilised one way or another. I'd rather do it through something like IP filters than watch the community migrate into gated communities like facebook.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#63

Post by barrkel »

cturner wrote: post #49
barrkel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Frankly, I agree. The thrust of my comment was more on backing up the assertion that treating Nigerians this way is actually unjust, immoral; not that it doesn't make business sense, or that it's a relatively small slice of the larger pie, etc.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#64

Post by [deleted] »

barrkel wrote: post #63
cturner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Frankly, I agree. The thrust of my comment was more on backing up the assertion that treating Nigerians this way is actually unjust, immoral; not that it doesn't make business sense, or that it's a relatively small slice of the larger pie, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#65

Post by Duff »

kakaylor wrote: post #39
rmc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

GDP isn't the issue with Africa and the number of Western companies that want nothing to do with the continent.

The issue is the governments like Nigeria are completely incapable of regulating what goes on inside of its borders. In cases like Nigeria, where the "419" scam is actually an measurably significant industry within the country, the scammers are probably in cahoots with the authorities.

Why does e-commerce work in the US? As a guy sitting in New York, how can I comfortably sell goods via the internet to someone in Hawaii or New Mexico? Fundamentally, it's because the US is a nation governed by law, and efforts to defraud are not acceptable.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#66

Post by SaintSal »

markessien wrote: post #12
dangrossman wrote: post #9

This is a problem that will be fixed only when payment fraud in the country decreases. That'll happen in part simply by increasing the number of people online and making purchases. There are several countries my websites won't allow payments from, but Nigeria isn't currently on that list because it's not been a problem country for me in recent years. I'm sure other retailers are acting on real data too and would stop…

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

Great point, and a lesson that has already been learned (in a positive way) by the insurance business in England.

Elephant & Castle was once an area in London where you couldn't get insurance easily, if at all.

It took the founder of a business incubator there to call a few friends in the insurance business with the same argument: "how will you ever take advantage of this market if you don't start somewhere? I will do whatever it takes on my premises for you to be comfortable giving me insurance. After you're comfortable with doing business with me, you'll have first-mover advantage in the area." It worked.

Of course, insurance is a slightly more competitive business than online payments.

And I see Oo's point in the addendum too. Running a business is time-consuming. Saying you've identified a market gap so you should start ANOTHER business is patronising and ridiculous. And whether or not there is more fraud from any specific country doesn't excuse the laziness of a policy that unfairly prejudices and overburdens honest businesspeople from that country.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#67

Post by yummyfajitas »

barrkel wrote: post #63
cturner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Frankly, I agree. The thrust of my comment was more on backing up the assertion that treating Nigerians this way is actually unjust, immoral; not that it doesn't make business sense, or that it's a relatively small slice of the larger pie, etc.

I'm guessing there is all sorts of online commerce you don't engage in due to the risk of scams. Is that also unjust, due to the fact that your attempts to avoid a scam might deprive some legitimate people of your business?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#68

Post by geuis »

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…

Companies don't have a moral responsibility to do anything, but they have fiduciary ones to their shareholders. If a significant amount of harm was being generated from Nigeria, it's easy to understand why the country is cut off.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#69

Post by damoncali »

microarchitect wrote: post #48
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?!

I have no idea. But if I'm Paypal, I do what's in my best interest, and that doesn't include helping out the people of Nigeria. That's up to the Nigerians.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#70

Post by simonw »

daleharvey wrote: post #30

While on holiday in Morocco one of my domains got very close to expiring, after trying for an hour or so to renew it I have a friend my details and they logged in and done it immediately. for some reason didnt think of using a proxy I couldnt imagine how frustrating it would be for that to happen regularly

123reg.co.uk was inaccessible from both Morocco and Egypt when I travelled there last year. I had to use a UK-based VPN to modify DNS records.
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