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In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

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Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#21

Post by lopis »

oefrha wrote: post #19

To be clear I know nothing about Bangladesh, but obvious contradictions cast doubt on this piece of reporting. An obvious one: subtitle says In Bangladesh, there is no Amazon. There is no eBay. If you want to buy a dress or a crested finch from the comfort of your home, you have to use Facebook. Then somewhere in the article: The phenomenon has grown so much over the years that the number of stores on Facebook now ec…

I'm always surprised when garbage articles like these make it to the top of HN. I guess HN is not immune to "i only read the title" kind of threads. And since it sounds like an anti-facebook kind of article, it gets HN's blessing, and off to the top it goes.

There was one more thing you missed that is not explicitly in the article. In virtually any country there are groups on facebook to buy pretty much anything, including live birds. Is Bangladesh really so different?

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#22

Post by luckylion »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #17
luckylion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that Facebook is capable of adding a similar filter to match "to change hands"? If they were capable, what could the explanation be for why they don't?

Because there are many, many langauges and idioms in the world, and AI isn't good enough to do this accurately at the moment. Given that Bangladesh is pretty poor and small, the likelihood is that if they were to pour resources into it, eventually the business would pull out of the country, as it wouldn't be profitable. Note that if they block to change hands, then people will start using another idiom, so a mere fil…

It's certainly a cat-and-mouse-game until you've added the obvious idioms, but that only lasts a few iterations, because the users will quickly have to come up with new ones that get less useful as their understanding gets less wide-spread. It's one of those situations where you can absolutely win by and large, even if you don't catch everything. If you catch 95-99%, you're done.

Bangladesh has a population of 160m, and almost all speak Bengali, which is also used in India by a significant minority. It's not like we're talking about ignoring Liechtenstein. It won't eat up the profits by having someone add 10 rules to a filter list for a target audience of 200m+, even if they are poor.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#23

Post by kzrdude »

lopis wrote: post #21
oefrha wrote: post #19

To be clear I know nothing about Bangladesh, but obvious contradictions cast doubt on this piece of reporting. An obvious one: subtitle says In Bangladesh, there is no Amazon. There is no eBay. If you want to buy a dress or a crested finch from the comfort of your home, you have to use Facebook. Then somewhere in the article: The phenomenon has grown so much over the years that the number of stores on Facebook now ec…

I'm always surprised when garbage articles like these make it to the top of HN. I guess HN is not immune to "i only read the title" kind of threads. And since it sounds like an anti-facebook kind of article, it gets HN's blessing, and off to the top it goes. There was one more thing you missed that is not explicitly in the article. In virtually any country there are groups on facebook to buy pretty much anything, inc…

I'm not sure if you think it's legitimate or not, but one of the effects of upvoting a story on hacker news, is that the thread stays around on the front page, and the discussion grows.

Users can upvote stories either because the story itself or because of the HN discussion thread; and it's often the latter that we come to this site for, isn't it?

Isn't that legtimate, to upvote something if you already like or think you'd like the to read the discussion about it?

Irrelevant note: This story didn't earn my vote.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#24

Post by oefrha »

lopis wrote: post #21
oefrha wrote: post #19

To be clear I know nothing about Bangladesh, but obvious contradictions cast doubt on this piece of reporting. An obvious one: subtitle says In Bangladesh, there is no Amazon. There is no eBay. If you want to buy a dress or a crested finch from the comfort of your home, you have to use Facebook. Then somewhere in the article: The phenomenon has grown so much over the years that the number of stores on Facebook now ec…

I'm always surprised when garbage articles like these make it to the top of HN. I guess HN is not immune to "i only read the title" kind of threads. And since it sounds like an anti-facebook kind of article, it gets HN's blessing, and off to the top it goes. There was one more thing you missed that is not explicitly in the article. In virtually any country there are groups on facebook to buy pretty much anything, inc…

> I guess HN is not immune to "i only read the title" kind of threads.

It's obviously not, and the effect is often exaggerated when you read the comment section early on: it simply takes more time to read the article and write thoughtful responses than replying to the title immediately with canned talking points.

Calling this a garbage article may be overly uncharitable, but I do put myself on high alert and try not to fall prey to Gell-Mann amnesia whenever I read one of these weird-phenomenon-in-unfamiliar-country stories, even when there's no obvious propaganda value behind it, since half of the time I read one about a country I'm actually familiar with, the phenomenon is misunderstood, blown way out of proportions, or sometimes even foreign to local residents.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#26

Post by blantonl »

monadic2 wrote: post #18
shp0ngle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the exact opposite of what's happening. Facebook enables people with little knowledge of e-commerce to just open a shop with a few clicks. All the selling happens in messages. What's your proposed alternative? Some government-sponsored app that has the same features as Facebook? Cool. Try that and let me know how it goes in Bangladesh. If it wasn't Facebook, it would be some other large centralized sy…

Huh apparently all I need to do to justify literally any business model a) have a small mountain of cash and b) make it convenient. People will just give up on trying to imagine a way to do things better. Why bother when I already do things as well as anyone can imagine?

Making a business transaction convenient typically involves a process of imagining a way to do things better.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#27

Post by mab122 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #17
luckylion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that Facebook is capable of adding a similar filter to match "to change hands"? If they were capable, what could the explanation be for why they don't?

Because there are many, many langauges and idioms in the world, and AI isn't good enough to do this accurately at the moment. Given that Bangladesh is pretty poor and small, the likelihood is that if they were to pour resources into it, eventually the business would pull out of the country, as it wouldn't be profitable. Note that if they block to change hands, then people will start using another idiom, so a mere fil…

In Poland people use wording such as "won't sell" or "won't buy" for selling and buying stuff on facebook that cannot be traded there legally.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#28

Post by hoseja »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #17
luckylion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that Facebook is capable of adding a similar filter to match "to change hands"? If they were capable, what could the explanation be for why they don't?

Because there are many, many langauges and idioms in the world, and AI isn't good enough to do this accurately at the moment. Given that Bangladesh is pretty poor and small, the likelihood is that if they were to pour resources into it, eventually the business would pull out of the country, as it wouldn't be profitable. Note that if they block to change hands, then people will start using another idiom, so a mere fil…

Bangladesh may be poor but it certainly isn't small. It's the eighth most populous country!

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#29

Post by mmsimanga »

nathancahill wrote: post #25

One interesting advantage that I didn't see mentioned in the article is that Facebook data is often included for free in mobile phone plans, or as part of a "Social Media" package that's cheaper than other data.

This is true in parts of Africa I live and visit. Network providers sell data bundles specifically for Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter. These social media data bundles are way cheaper than "normal" data which enables you to visit the "Internet". So much news and business networking happens on Whatsapp you might as well call WhatsApp and Facebook the internet for most people in these countries.
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