Hacker News Reader

Comment by beilabs | Hacker News Reader

I've been keeping an eye on services After Pay in Australia for years. I often thought about rolling it out in Nepal and other developing countries and then I stopped. I came to the conclusion that there is an even greater amount of risk in countries where such credit is not normally available, a huge lack of capital for most people and families is the norm and decided that this would be a predatory practice. So I stayed away.

With everything happening right now, it's incredibly irresponsible for such a product to be released in a market that is unprepared to deal with the consequences.

Starvation for many families who would avail of this service is a fact. Many have come out and said that they will probably starve long before they contract any virus. Scary stuff. Shame on Amazon and shame on Facebook!

View on HN

You're saying that an entire country doesn't deserve a new credit service because of a lack of existing credit services in that country.

1. You're ignoring middle class and well-off people in those countries. 2. Access to credit is important for developing economies. 3. Access to credit doesn't imply predatory lending, that's a separate problem in how the creditor runs their business.

I'm not ignoring them at all.

I know that this service will be abused by those who need quick access to capital and it will ruin many of their lives. I don't support payday lending either, doesn't mean that it's illegal but it sure is unethical to charge high interest rates on low sums.

Amazon has said this is rolling out (only) to "eligible customers", so it may be restricted to the middle class.

The people that are facing starvation are not Amazon customers in the first place; they are mostly migrant labour that doesn't have a fixed address, or they live in remote areas where Amazon does not deliver.

Also, we don't know what the interest rates are, as yet.

Not to defend loan sharks and usury, but the moral conundrum is always interesting. There isn't really any winning here, because if you fail to ethically offer credit products, you're not actually destroying the market demand nor how it is filled. By that I mean you'll get payday lenders and if you don't get payday lenders than you get criminal underworld loan sharks. We take access to credit and the way it smoothes things financially for granted, but not everyone has that luxury. Starvation for many families who don't avail of that service is also likely a fact. Starvation as a result of the second order economic fallout of this pandemic across much of the global south is certainly a fact. Saying shame on Amazon and shame on Facebook might help you feel better, but what's your alternative?

there's credit available, just in the form of loan sharks or third tier and above lenders with predatory practices already. very common in developing countries and hard to stamp out but demand is there.

"Pay later" services are already there in developing markets like India (Simpl, LazyPay etc)

Those are on a much smaller scale though, and their target market is mostly formal-sector, whereas Amazon and WhatsApp's initiatives seem to be aiming much wider.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com