Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

restofworld.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–147 of 147 posts

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#141

Post by softveda »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #70
hedora wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes so much more sense than illiteracy. The phone app could just have a thumbs up with a number or a thumbs down, after all. It suggests having a tv-like display would work about as well, and be less noisy / distracting.

I think a display might consume much more power than a speak, these look like they could, if they aren't already, powered with batteries, while a display could also be powered with batteries it wouldn't last nearly as long, not to mention that you can hear this even if you're not looking at it.

100%, Many small street vendors don't have a power connection. They literally have a LED light connected to a rechargeable battery at night. I have seen these sound boxes, they probably come with their own chargeable battery. Display cost would be factor too. But most importantly they can service fast while not taking their eyes off, like when they are cooking (for street food vendors)

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#142

Post by rramadass »

alsodumb wrote: post #5
flerchin wrote: post #2

Literacy rates in India look to be ~80% and climbing about 1% per year. Obviously it'll reach an asymptote, but it's looking like India already surpasses the US in this regard. Of course, given the large population, more Indians are illiterate than there are people in almost every nation. Nonetheless, wouldn't this solution be quite niche? Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/literacy-rat...

I've interacted with several vendors who use these sound boxes. The article is a bit misleading in the sense that illiteracy is not the primary driver of the usage of these devices. It is a better check-out experience. Vendors were busy and annoyed by the fact that they have to use their phone to confirm payments which often hindered them from doing their routine to sell more stuff. Think about vendors making street…

>It is a better check-out experience.

This is exactly it! I remember the time before these speakers became commonplace. You had to wait while the vendor checked his phone, argue if there is a delay in SMS notification, crowded environments meant waiting your turn and in general it was a very real hassle. With these speakers, you do the payment, yell out saying you have done it and go your way (async I/O :-) .

It is one of those small things whose impact is huge in practice. It is a lesson to us techie folks to always concentrate on the "real user experience" rather than imagined ones.

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#143

Post by creatonez »

s_dev wrote: post #135
creatonez wrote: post #134

Why is it taking 10 minutes to confirm payment...? Edit: For some reason it's mentioned nowhere in the article, but it's because these are cryptocurrency transactions

Another user is claiming: >Not mentioned in the article but I asked a shopkeeper why they use it. Answer is fraud. Earlier, customers would download a "fake" app, which miciked online gateway's UI. Customer would punch in money, and show to shopkeeper that "payment went through". Customer takes goods with them and leaves. Shopkeeper looses money. I don't think half of India is using crypto currency transactions every…

You might be right. I searched the name of the company and the CEO is a strong supporter of cryptocurrency, but there's no indication that their products are actually cryptocurrency related.

Still wouldn't make sense for there to be a 10 minute wait, unless the backend servers are just as clogged and unusable as popular blockchains are.

(Possibly crazy conspiracy theory w/ no basis in reality: The company is putting in `sleep(5mins + jitter)` into each transaction to prepare a fresh open-minded market for future cryptocurrency adoption when the legislative environment allows for it)

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#145

Post by HeavyFeather »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #133
HeavyFeather wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would never work Ask Thailand and their QR-code based payments, TrueMoney and "Thai QR", because that's exactly how they work. Maybe scammers are less prevalent in Thailand than in India so they go by trust, even in 7-Elevens.

I imagine in thailand, the person elbow deep in batter is not the person checking payments? I wonder how it works for one-person stalls...

Nope, same, they also have one-person street food vendors

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#146

Post by HeavyFeather »

lxgr wrote: post #72
HeavyFeather wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would never work Ask Thailand and their QR-code based payments, TrueMoney and "Thai QR", because that's exactly how they work. Maybe scammers are less prevalent in Thailand than in India so they go by trust, even in 7-Elevens.

I'd be really surprised if 7-Eleven employees used personal or company-provided smartphones to confirm payments. For most QR payment systems, the flow for smaller merchants is customers scanning a printed QR code (optionally with common amounts pre-populated) and the merchant receiving a notification (so no need to actually open any app to confirm payments, and the merchant app could easily assign different ringtones…

> For tax and reporting reasons alone, payments practically need to be bound to a given transaction/receipt number.

Cash doesn't work like that, so some countries might not require this link even for some cashless payments. Heck I receive money transfers in EU and US that don't have any numbers in them, and they're not $2.

Re: Tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India

#147

Post by jonfw »

SaltyGoodness wrote: post #52
jonfw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two causes to consider. The failure of society to provide equal opportunities to all, and the failure of individuals to capitalize on what opportunities they have available. The trouble with your criticism is that you are focusing entirely on society’s failures, when a more complete analysis would consider what can be done on either side.

Sure, everyone ought to do what they can to better themselves. That's for another comment, because the question was, what is it about America that has literacy skills at such a shameful level. It's not Brad's fault that he can't read good. It's not Chad's fault that he hasn't picked up a book. These hypothetical kids are 6, 7, 8 years old. That's on us, and our willingness to allow their home lives to be miserable ra…

Parents should be putting books into these kids hands. Society can not replace the role of a parent.

We can and should help the parents, and the first step is assessing the root of the problem, and sometimes that looks a lot more like laying blame than some folks are willing to do

Post reply on HN