Internet and data is expensive in South Africa compared to other countries. We have gone for a very expensive package as we run gaming, normal internet and internet tv off it. This costs more than $100 each month and though it sounds reasonable is out of the reach of many. Basic packages are cheaper but then they all use it for face book.
I learned about the Telco's in one of your neighbouring countries (almost neighbour, Angola), when they needed more money, they increased the prices of the subscription and prepaid service with 10% and only saw a loss of 1% of subscribers. The played this game over and over. This made Telco service very expensive over time, and mostly used by the 'elite'.
That is what happens. They don't understand that if they cheapened the price they would increase their business by far more. I always compare these things to a gold fish bowl where if you lose a goldfish the remainder have to pay the overall price even though their is less fish in the bowl. Many businesses do this and somehow they get away with it.
Yea, free market is not always driving everything in the right direction. Could also have to do with they earning enough money from the few top customers, and dont want to spend too much money in the business itself to be able to handle many low paying customers.
What's the situation for people living in townships? Prepaid mobile data? $2/week on average? $5?
I just asked my maid that question. She spends around $5 week for chatting and checking emails. Data is very expensive currently and those that use the internet spend at least double that. I am on a corporate package so don't really know the costs myself. 1GB is around $5 currently.
Whoa! That's insane.
So for a majority of people in townships Hive would be unaffordable, rather than them being the exact audience we would all expect to flock to sites like this because a buck can make a difference.
Thanks for asking btw!
Yes currently looking at it like that. If Hive is not Data friendly then they couldn't really afford it. Only the ones that are working in an office or have access to a computer at work will be tempted.
!ENGAGE 30
That was the angle from which I approached my initial reply to Taraz: the unbanked and poor people for whom any regular earning could be meaningful.
And there’s billions of those.
Data prices need to drop before that happens. I think the first step is to target the ones just above them who could afford to get going. The $5 or $10 would be needed to be spent over a month at least in order to see a return meaning a $20 -$40 investment.
Well, all that I can say about this is imagine how charities like us are struggling with the high costs of IT in South Africa.
ENGAGEtokens.I wonder if it is possible to have a stripped down version?
It is a consumer decision again, where most will choose pure entertainment most of the time.
I think if they knew that they could earn $ they would. many are desperate and earning even $20 a month is huge. My maid has seen what I have done and yet she hasn't asked once if and how she can get on Hive. Let me ask her as I haven't done that yet as that would be an interesting answer. She just smiled and said Yes. She said she is serious as she would like to try lol. Maybe an experiment is required here.
Definitely worth an experiment and perhaps a little support to get up and running. :)
That is easy on my part lol. Will try and give it a go and then she can give feedback. Wouldn't take much to teach her as she is fairly smart and has two other sideline businesses so not a normal maid.
Yes, but stripped down may not be what you imagine.
For mobile data since I think 2013 you can buy data for specific apps only (only most popular ones). Obviously, that is a ridiculously bad deal for people in most cases.
And it totally undermines net neutrality too.
What I wonder is if there was an interface that gave a low data optimization option.
One of the two telcos runs a data optimizing VPN app for Android phones. Doesn’t strip ads out tho, and in an early version even introduced its own ads bar at the bottom because that’s what you do as a corporation, right.
Tbh data here is “cheap” compared to many African countries and Central and Southern American countries. Less than half the price compared to many countries. Still expensive to millions tho. We have plenty of available bandwidth here, more than enough to give those 30-50 million poor and/or unbanked citizens 1GB FB traffic every day.
I’m surprised no Venezuelan or Nigerian Hiver shared their local situation yet.