Re: Uberization

From: Loganaden Velvindron <logan_at_afrinic.net>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2016 20:58:57 +0400

Hi SM,

I was in a dinner a few days ago with a friend, and he also mentioned
this term. Honestly, I didn't know what it means. In my view,
Uberization cannot quite work in Mauritius because we are still stuck
with shops that do not accept payment by cards. We still have to carry
cash. The problem is how much cash ?

e.g, in Ebene, there are food shops which accept payment by cash only.
Same goes for the street merchants. Assume that they vary the price of
the food every week. If they don't publish it via a website, then, it's
hard for me to know how much cash I have to retrieve from the ATM. These
days, some argue that you should not walk around with a lot of money as
well.

In order for a large number of people in Mauritius to benefit from
Uberization, we would need

1) Public wifi everywhere so that people can go online (We should not
forget that 60% of households are connected to the Internet). We need a
way to make it possible for the less fortunate to be able to get it.

2) A cheap and easy way for any shop to push their prices in real time
on the web. I'm not sure if facebook is a good platform for this.

3) Payment by cards becoming accessible for street merchants which is
much easier for fluctuating prices.


 
Received on Sat Jan 02 2016 - 16:46:03 PST