6 ms·

Just a minor comment (I currently live in Egypt): > Control centres will monitor infrastructure and security electronically, roofs will be covered in solar pan

by tazjin 6y ago

Just a minor comment (I currently live in Egypt): > Control centres will monitor infrastructure and security electronically, roofs will be covered in solar panels, payments will be cashless Good luck with that - a huge number of places don't even put prices up because everything is negotiable and cash is king. If they only want the kind of Western-style stores with explicit prices in this area, then this could be restated as "we don't want the poor part of our population here". Cairo (and to larger degree, Giza) have a very intense, unique feel inside the city and I don't think this move will change anything about that.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
> If they only want the kind of Western-style stores with explicit prices in this area, then this could be restated as "we don't want the poor part of our population here". We both know that's exactly what they want.
- rover0 6y ago
  Even if there are workarounds for this specific problem, the signal being sent is clear.
M277 6y ago
It's not just the fixed pricing, but everything is more expensive there. Much more. The poor part of the population couldn't even dream to live in the new capital. There's a theory that the recent minimum wage increase for the government sector was actually because some government workers now have to live there, but they financially can't.
0xcoffee 6y ago
We have cashless markets over here and they just key in the price. Cashless != fixed price
riskable 6y ago
Hey now... Just because a payment is cashless doesn't mean you can't haggle the price down. I've been in plenty of shops where you bring the item to the counter and the cashier enters the price directly into the register. No bar code necessary! Even if you use a barcode there's no reason why the price can't be entered in directly or modified at the behest of the cashier. In the West we just don't trust our cashiers enough to do that sort of thing so we lock out that power ("Manager assistance needed at isle four!"). What the world needs right now is cashless payments that don't have absurd (>0.1%) transaction fees. I used to work at First Data (largest credit card processor) and you know how much it costs them to execute a credit card transaction? NOTHING. It's literally nothing. It's not even a factor of, "we have this many servers in this many data centers and here's how much the electricity costs, divided by the total number of transactions in a given day." Why? Because every customer that uses First Data still pays a monthly fee that more than makes up for the cost of all the employees, data centers, software, etc etc. If all First Data ever collected was that monthly fee they'd still be profitable (assuming all they did was handle credit card transactions).
- tazjin 6y ago
  There's still more to this than just having payment infrastructure. People need to have cards, the cards need to have money on them - both of these are already assumptions that aren't guaranteed to hold for a lot of people.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Moving to cellphone payments is actually easier than having cards though.
    - tazjin 6y ago
      Cell networks are only semi-reliable here, a significant portion of people don't use smart phones (or really care about their phones), and that also needs to be linked to some electronic "value store". Sure, it's possible to overcome all of these things in theory - but at what benefit to the population? Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves.
      - subsaharancoder 6y ago
        You don't need a smartphone to enable cellphone financial transactions, check out Kenya's Safaricom Mpesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa which is SIM card based, doesn't use any data, has the option of using USSD or Mobile App. It's already available in Egypt.
        warkdarrior 6y ago
        What do University of South Sudan denars have to do with Kenya?
        subsaharancoder 6y ago
        Can't tell if you're being serious or just trolling, but I'll bite so here you go USSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Service_Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Ser...
Waterluvian 6y ago
Is haggling anything but a waste of time? My understanding is that it's like haggling for cars. The buyer never really wins, they at best "don't lose."
- nine_k 6y ago
  Haggling has no point in a supermarket where the cashier's responsibility is maximizing throughout, and the streams of customers are thick. Haggling works better at small shops with few customers and no lines. It allows the seller to have a huge markup on buyers who have little experience or time, or aren't as price-sensitive. It also allows for a human connection between the seller and a discerning buyer, and has an entertainment value for them both, like a short game.
  - EmilioMartinez 6y ago
    >It allows the seller to have a huge markup on buyers who have little experience or time Honestly, that sounds like ripping people off to me. An important part of social mobility is being able to venture into different businesses. Experience in a subject is an advantage in many dimentions, but having to learn new things while having your suppliers exploit your inexperience sounds like an unjust burden.
    - pasttense01 6y ago
      Nobody has little experience except tourists and they can afford it (and even with the huge markups the locally made stuff is probably cheaper than what it could be bought for in the U.S.)
- vondur 6y ago
  It can be a waste of time when you are fleeing Roman soldiers!
  - tibu 6y ago
    How much?
taurath 6y ago
A lot of the push to go away from cash is for tax evasion and money laundering purposes, so expect that push to continue.
tim333 6y ago
They'll probably make it a condition of leasing real estate or maybe a local law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Gouna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Gouna shows you can do that kind of thing in Egypt. They have western style no haggle with high prices.

by tazjin 6y ago

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

> If they only want the kind of Western-style stores with explicit prices in this area, then this could be restated as "we don't want the poor part of our population here". We both know that's exactly what they want.

rover0 6y ago
Even if there are workarounds for this specific problem, the signal being sent is clear.

M277 6y ago

It's not just the fixed pricing, but everything is more expensive there. Much more. The poor part of the population couldn't even dream to live in the new capital. There's a theory that the recent minimum wage increase for the government sector was actually because some government workers now have to live there, but they financially can't.

0xcoffee 6y ago

We have cashless markets over here and they just key in the price. Cashless != fixed price

riskable 6y ago

Hey now... Just because a payment is cashless doesn't mean you can't haggle the price down. I've been in plenty of shops where you bring the item to the counter and the cashier enters the price directly into the register. No bar code necessary! Even if you use a barcode there's no reason why the price can't be entered in directly or modified at the behest of the cashier. In the West we just don't trust our cashiers enough to do that sort of thing so we lock out that power ("Manager assistance needed at isle four!"). What the world needs right now is cashless payments that don't have absurd (>0.1%) transaction fees. I used to work at First Data (largest credit card processor) and you know how much it costs them to execute a credit card transaction? NOTHING. It's literally nothing. It's not even a factor of, "we have this many servers in this many data centers and here's how much the electricity costs, divided by the total number of transactions in a given day." Why? Because every customer that uses First Data still pays a monthly fee that more than makes up for the cost of all the employees, data centers, software, etc etc. If all First Data ever collected was that monthly fee they'd still be profitable (assuming all they did was handle credit card transactions).

tazjin 6y ago
There's still more to this than just having payment infrastructure. People need to have cards, the cards need to have money on them - both of these are already assumptions that aren't guaranteed to hold for a lot of people.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Moving to cellphone payments is actually easier than having cards though.
  - tazjin 6y ago
    Cell networks are only semi-reliable here, a significant portion of people don't use smart phones (or really care about their phones), and that also needs to be linked to some electronic "value store". Sure, it's possible to overcome all of these things in theory - but at what benefit to the population? Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves.
    - subsaharancoder 6y ago
      You don't need a smartphone to enable cellphone financial transactions, check out Kenya's Safaricom Mpesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa which is SIM card based, doesn't use any data, has the option of using USSD or Mobile App. It's already available in Egypt.
      - warkdarrior 6y ago
        What do University of South Sudan denars have to do with Kenya?
        subsaharancoder 6y ago
        Can't tell if you're being serious or just trolling, but I'll bite so here you go USSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Service_Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Ser...

Waterluvian 6y ago

Is haggling anything but a waste of time? My understanding is that it's like haggling for cars. The buyer never really wins, they at best "don't lose."

nine_k 6y ago
Haggling has no point in a supermarket where the cashier's responsibility is maximizing throughout, and the streams of customers are thick. Haggling works better at small shops with few customers and no lines. It allows the seller to have a huge markup on buyers who have little experience or time, or aren't as price-sensitive. It also allows for a human connection between the seller and a discerning buyer, and has an entertainment value for them both, like a short game.
- EmilioMartinez 6y ago
  >It allows the seller to have a huge markup on buyers who have little experience or time Honestly, that sounds like ripping people off to me. An important part of social mobility is being able to venture into different businesses. Experience in a subject is an advantage in many dimentions, but having to learn new things while having your suppliers exploit your inexperience sounds like an unjust burden.
  - pasttense01 6y ago
    Nobody has little experience except tourists and they can afford it (and even with the huge markups the locally made stuff is probably cheaper than what it could be bought for in the U.S.)
vondur 6y ago
It can be a waste of time when you are fleeing Roman soldiers!
- tibu 6y ago
  How much?

taurath 6y ago

A lot of the push to go away from cash is for tax evasion and money laundering purposes, so expect that push to continue.

tim333 6y ago

They'll probably make it a condition of leasing real estate or maybe a local law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Gouna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Gouna shows you can do that kind of thing in Egypt. They have western style no haggle with high prices.