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:( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies - People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank acco
by ian0 9y ago
:( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies
- People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank accounts are expensive (for bank & users) and its this has been the primary limiter of financial inclusion. Mobile wallets reduce branch costs. Mobile wallets like Grab, where the "bank" has a few hundred thousand employee / customers and millions of potential users to sell to have a great head start.
- People use grab-pay / go-pay instead of cash because you get a big discount on services when you do. They need to this, because cash-in to mobile wallets is such a pain. And no, they don't have much trust in apps. Subsidies can be reduced of course as they cement habit and provide more utility from the app (hence the rush for merchants & new use cases).
- Credit card fraud doesn't stop people from applying for credit cards. Central bank regulations on ownership criteria do. As does financial prudence (& religious reasons here).
- The NO TIPPING signs at Jakarta Airport are to let you know its a free service. Because tipping parking attendants is commonplace. Its not related to bribary.
- "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Once, I was ripped off by a guy offering a hotel in a train station in Rome. It doesn't mean hotels in Rome are inherently untrustworthy.
The latter part of the article is pretty accurate - Grab & Gojek are have made huge improvements in employment and financial inclusion. They have opened up the door to insanely cool new services and Id struggle to think of tech companies who have made such a huge impact into daily life here (Including FB & the like). Its also extremely likely that one of them will become the Alipay/Wechat of SEA and re-arrange the banking & e-comm landscapes too over the next few years.
- ponyfleisch 9y ago> - "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Taking taxis in most of SEA (and China), at least as a white foreigner, is a gamble every time. In KL, it takes me about 3 times each time to get a taxi that doesn't try to charge me a fixed fare, which is usually about 3x the normal fare. On my last two visits to Shanghai, i had one ride each time where the driver was "asking" for extra money by yelling and in one case threatening physical violence. In Bangkok it much depends on the location. Worst case you'll have to ask about 5 parked taxis before one agrees to use the meter. Before Grab/Uber, there were not many alternatives to taxis, but that does not mean that taxis were providing good service.
- argonaut 9y agoAlso agree with ponyfleisch. Taxis as a foreigner in Thailand were always a gamble. 50/50 chance of a negative experience.