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As a business owner who geoblocks: It's not usually a benefit to a business if a customer pays upfront. Whether my customer pays by debit or credit, I get all

As a business owner who geoblocks: It's not usually a benefit to a business if a customer pays upfront. Whether my customer pays by debit or credit, I get all of that money upfront before I let the transaction proceed. Some businesses, like car dealers, actually make more money if the customer buys using debt, because they get incentivized by the loan company. And lastly, the sheer scale of the US economy means that it's really not worth the hassle. All of Africa would be equal to one of the larger states (Wikipedia says $3T, Texas is 2.1T and Cali is 3.5T). So it's vastly simpler, cheaper, and easier to deal with say 30m Texans or 40m Californians than literally 1.3 billion people in Africa or India, and you get roughly the same total addressable market and a fraction of the bots & scams. Hence why many sites simply block non-North American traffic. I wish we lived in a world that was more fair and open, but a couple of bad actors can really ruin things for everyone.

figassis 3y ago
When I say pay "upfront", I don't mean that the upfront cash is better for business, but that usually, the credit industry is very good at letting people buy things they can't afford. Some one who pays upfront likely can afford and might have higher lifetime value. Someone to advertise to, upsell, or whatever. Secondly, I also get it, there's only so many things a business can worry about, and supporting geographies with historically high fraud rates is not high on the list, this is why my gripe here is with CF that does not make it easier to improve this even though they know they control such a huge chunk of the web.
- FredPret 3y ago
  > Some one who pays upfront likely can afford and might have higher lifetime value. Someone to advertise to, upsell, or whatever. 100%. Richer people tend to be better customers. But that's another strike in favor of geoblocking non-US visitors. When I was a kid growing up in Africa, I dreamt of a world where everything was accessible and purchasable and learnable everywhere, all the time, to everyone. Hopefully the internet turns out to be an equalizing factor and we get there someday. Right now it's not really fair to expect business owners - most of whom are in non-tech businesses that require 100% focus - to keep up with the tidal wave of scams, hackers, and regulators originating from outside their sphere of concern.

figassis 3y ago

When I say pay "upfront", I don't mean that the upfront cash is better for business, but that usually, the credit industry is very good at letting people buy things they can't afford. Some one who pays upfront likely can afford and might have higher lifetime value. Someone to advertise to, upsell, or whatever. Secondly, I also get it, there's only so many things a business can worry about, and supporting geographies with historically high fraud rates is not high on the list, this is why my gripe here is with CF that does not make it easier to improve this even though they know they control such a huge chunk of the web.

FredPret 3y ago
> Some one who pays upfront likely can afford and might have higher lifetime value. Someone to advertise to, upsell, or whatever. 100%. Richer people tend to be better customers. But that's another strike in favor of geoblocking non-US visitors. When I was a kid growing up in Africa, I dreamt of a world where everything was accessible and purchasable and learnable everywhere, all the time, to everyone. Hopefully the internet turns out to be an equalizing factor and we get there someday. Right now it's not really fair to expect business owners - most of whom are in non-tech businesses that require 100% focus - to keep up with the tidal wave of scams, hackers, and regulators originating from outside their sphere of concern.