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Comment by antonioevans | Hacker News Reader

That is a first world problem. Majority of the the world does not have a credit card or real access to a card. Majority of world pays with cash. A statement like this is similar to when I see American abroad and shocked that places don't take Amex for purchases. It's a very first world thing to even own an Amex let alone use it for a small purchases below $50.

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>That is a first world problem.

But owning a smartphone with a touch screen (instead of tin cans connected by a string) and having the luxury of choosing between Uber vs LibreTaxi (instead of waving your arms on the street to hail a taxi) is also a 1st world problem. If we're discussing percentage of world market, 51%+ do not have combined attributes of (1) smartphone ownership[1] + (2) Uber availability + (3) preference for paying cash.

For customers, one of the key attractions to Uber is that drivers can't play the game of "oh sorry my credit card reader is broken, you'll have to pay cash". In other words, many customers deliberately choose Uber as way of not having to pay cash. (This point is more relevant in Uber-USA and not Uber-India that allows cash payment.)

The developer name I see on the LibreTaxi page is "Roman Pushkin, San Francisco, California" and since he's based in a 1st-world location, it seems like the Uber-vs-LibreTaxi has relevance to cashless people like me. If he intends for the service to be used mostly by 3rd-world countries where cash is king, I misunderstood the point of the Uber vs LibreTaxi comparison.

EDIT ADD 40-minutes later: I found author's comment on the intended market of customers: "Just started http://libretaxi.org - uber alternative for communities and remote regions." : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052

also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355: "Uber, a company evaluated at $60B, will unlikely go to remote Siberian region where I was born."

Conclusion: LibreTaxi isn't really a competitor to Uber -- it's more of an alternative to remote villages having no ride sharing at all and therefore cash payments makes perfect sense for that market.

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone...

Errrh, i live in the Philippines, it has 80 million people on very low incomes, and yet it has one of the highest penetrations of android smartphones per head than most all other countries. You can get a quadcore 16GB android smartphone here for $30-40US, and they have a fantastic prepay system here where peopl can send credit to each other via the phone, such that it has become a virtual currency in its own right. https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-load https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516

Since that article prices for smartphones have tumbled again. I bought a smartphone, quadcore, 4GB, built in TV, Built in radio for P1,700 (about $34) Its a cheap phone, but it works fine. http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/

Sounds like jasode's point stands - anyone who has access to a smartphone also has access to non-cash means of payment.

As an example: India has 700 million mobile phone users, of which around 300 million are estimated to be smartphone users. Number of credit card users are around 20 million. the vast majority of "non-cash" payments would be done at some shop that will take cash and perform a digital payment or transfer for you.

Actually yes that's super common in a lot of countries.

In Vietnam it's the norm to have a smartphone but it's seriously difficult to get hold of a normal debit/credit card.

Not all systems in developing countries develop at the same speed. Some systems lag due to regulations, culture, etc. Other systems manage to leap-frog a generation.

I've been in Qatar for business. Coming from the US, it is shocking. Some systems have leapfrogged -- e.g., ease of banking, 2FA, mobile phone plans, messaging, ride-hailing apps, etc.

Other systems lag -- the most egregious example being the lack of a national address system. Correct -- i have no home address. Half the country does not -- people send GPS coordinates and WhatsApp location pindrops for ride-hailing and food delivery.

Places like Kenya have been leading the world in mobile payments.

Which you can use for this service as well.

s/cash/peer-to-peer/

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