I actually wasn't aware about the data cost in the Philippines since I'm based in Australia! I had assumed it wasn't a problem since Hive is alive in the Philippines.
Previously @SteemPh we rebranded, consolidated all our resources and accounts and moved to @HivePh.
We're actually working on strengthening our community at the moment by encouraging everyone to power up and increase their hive stake.
https://peakd.com/hive-188409/@hiveph/hive-ph-power-up-challenge-starts-now
We are definitely around!
Remember that depending on the amount of statistical juggling done, 30-50 million Filipinos fall below poverty level. Which is set at less than US$1.4/day (with sufficient juggling by gov at below $1.2 even).
And minimum wage in the capital is currently around $130, which includes food allowances and de facto travel expenses. Only one breadwinner in many households/families.
But trike drivers and jeepney drivers take home less than minimum wage. Working often 12-14hrs long days. A trike driver banks net around $1.7/day.
😱 I had some idea but I didnt realise it was that bad over there.
Crypto boom of 2017 we had a lot of Filos active on the blockchain but as prices plummeted so did our numbers.
What we did learn from the past is that we needed to be able to support each other as a community thus the push for everyone to power up right now.
I know prices arent great at the moment but Hive is far more promising than Steem ever was and I think a lot of people can see that.
C19 lockdown is contributing to the recent resurgence of Filipino bloggers coming back as well.
Knowing the numbers makes me even more determined to create a community that can support itself on hive.
One of the biggest problems in crypto, especially for platforms like these, is that we talk a lot about the unbanked but we don't talk a lot to them. Given the data cost situation, and in PH it's cheap compared to other countries as you can see in this thread, you need to be able to make them more than 1HBD/day for there to be an actual return they can notice in their weekly budget.
The savings, stake, should not be counted. 1/13th is not truly tangible and counting that in also defeats the longterm goal of onboarding them. But also gotta remember every exchange takes a little cut, then there's the transfer fee when sending to coins.ph or bitbit (limited options and both BTC and ETH are rather expensive currently, BCH and XRP are not common trading pairs), then they need to pay a (usually fix) fee on the padala outlet they get their real life pesos from.
Requires a solid community, or support of a decent orca, to make that a reality on a daily basis for everyone.
Im actually talking to them now on our discord server trying to figure out the figures.
And youre right, data cost over there is cheaper. 1000php for a month unlimited whereas I pay 100aud a month unlimited. but then minimum wage, etc needs to be factored in.
I understand what youre saying about the stake but like you said we need support from an orca - which we dont have so staking is a way for us to slowly build our community wealth and our way of building that solid community you speak of.
Gotta start somewhere.
If you can get a wired connection the cost is relatively awesome. US$ 35 for unlimited 20Mbps fiber too. We have plenty of bandwidth available (old undersea cables, the Singapore-Japan ultrafast connection, and an almost as fast FB undersea cable).
But most people in lower earnings bracket are on prepaid mobile data. We’ll get there, eventually.
!ENGAGE 50
Itd be good to get more feedback on data costs so I have a better idea on what each person needs to make per month just to cover internet. I get the feeling most are using pre paid mobile data though.
ENGAGEtokens.