Interesting premise. Probably more applicable in some countries than others. For example, not sure M-Pesa would fit the description of a “luxury” item any longer in Kenya.
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“In a continent where almost 70% of the population have NEVER had electricity according to the IEA, technology and consumer internet applications are a luxury.”
“Let’s stop deceiving ourselves. Technology is Africa’s luxury……for now. Those who will succeed, will have the branding and attitude of a luxury business.”
You’d be surprised actually. Combined with the fact that most of the places supposedly with electricity in Sub-saharan Africa and India only have it for half the day.
I think the percentage is lesser than that because most of the electricity consumer base either generate their own power completely or augment the little the government struggles to provide.
I’m not planning on connecting my dwelling to the national grid, so I’m sure I’ll be counted as part of the 70% who “have never had electricity”.
Lol, that’s not how statistics works. It is most likely based on the location of your dwelling and the mean availability of power in the area. Definitely not individual counting.
While I’m not a statistician and hold no claim to knowing how statistics work, I’ve read some books/articles on the subject (which I hope removes me from the JJC camp).
Have you seen any statistics that’s based on individual counting, because I’m yet to do so.
I’ve learnt to take all statistics with an atom of salt until I see the metrics/methodologies used in the data collation/curation, and also figure out the biases of the researchers that might influence the results (biases affect more than we might want to admit).
Exactly my point. They’ll obviously look at government generation & distribution, because that’s the primary supplier of power where they (I’m guessing they are not Africans) come from (availability/familiarity bias).
To make it more laughable, the DISCOs don’t even know who all their customers are, and how much they consume, making it more difficult to source electricity consumption/consumer data.
We all know there’s little or no government-supplied power in rural areas, hell, the government has its hands full trying to provide epileptic power in urban dwellings.
Another factor I guess they might have looked at is income class (those who can afford to buy power), which would disqualify keke, danfo, okada drivers and their assistants (where’s @Tola these days?), street hawkers, and the vast majority of those with an anemic stash of cash.
Those who live in Nigeria know that most of those who would be classified as being as poor as poverty itself by some miracle have i pass my neighbour (or bigger) generators, 1 or more Tecno/Infinix etc smartphone, flatscreens hanging on their walls & other acoutrements which should normally be beyond their reach. TL/DR Not all statistical correllations apply to in this here country; in other words, nothing is normal in Nigeria.
Unlike yourself I am ‘statistically’ a JJC, but it’s clear you haven’t read enough books/articles to shun my club.
They’d only need to determine average annual/monthly household power consumption, they can even run with a global mean value. With household count probably from the National planning commission, they can run a controlled count.
A short research can also put ‘certain’ value on the power distribution over a set period in a determined test area.
If the power confirmed to have been generated over the set period only fully covered for N number of households, then it paints a conclusive picture to report as if the rest never saw power, even though in reality the power generated may have been (un)evenly quota-ed across all households.
Same as reporting that 4 out of every 10 Radar users you meet in the next Radar hangout is a JJC. Of course in reality, I may not meet the 4 in my first 10 introductions, but I’d be hoping to count (4/10)n JJCs whenever I get to n.
And whatever power it is you’re generating with your ‘I pass my neighbor’ is not in the least interest for this report. And truly for the nature of this report it is indeterministic and offers more erratic cases for sound consensus; cuz It depends on when you’re at home, or if you’re at home. If there is fuel and you’re able to buy - not sick or too tired from work to indulge, also counts on if you know how to work the generating set and that’s also if the set is in good health to begin with.
For the sake of this report your generating set is backup power and doesn’t count as a result.
If you read through my post, I said my house would be fully solar-powered. The mentions of generating sets did not apply to me.
I was talking about the ones who shouldn’t be able to (or cannot) afford the gadgets they own e.g lowly-paid gatemen with smartphones costing more than twice their salary, or students with apartments containing gadgets their parents can’t afford.
Where would they get their ‘certain’ value from when the DISCOs cannot tell who all their consumers are, or cannot correctly measure their consumption data?
That would throw their estimations off by a large margin, as power distribution in Nigeria is irregular, hence rendering snapshots useless (in most cases).
All animals, err, “test areas” are not created equal in this electricity distribution animal farm of ours.
My whole point was (and is): whatever their metrics were,
is wrong. PS: @hsherman was quoting an article by the way, just so no one misinterpretes.
I like the flow of your argument, @87_chuks, even though I might not agree with it.
As for MPESA, it is a utility product provided by a utility. Innovations around it have only enhanced the use cases of a utility. There is a luxury to utility continuum which I will write about in a future post. Email is a utility, sms and messaging are utilities. Payments to a large extent is a utility business. Utilities scale on infrastructure and that is why similar initiatives have been elusive in other places where they have not yet got the infrastructure right.
Google and Facebook have transcended to even become infrastructure as they are platforms on which others are based. Without Android, there would be no fantastic Whatsapp numbers. Without Facebook, a lot of businesses will cease to exist.
That’s what makes what Google and Facebook are doing to spread internet access across the African continent so interesting to me and - it goes without saying - controversial. They are trying to ensure the growth of their platform by creating additional infrastructure while also pushing others content across that platform. To my mind, it’s not much different than what any of the telcos in African countries are trying or hoping to do. But I believe the telcos are regulated in a way that FB and Google are not. Sorry, I’m veering off-topic. The Over The Top debate is for another time. Looking forward to your next post on the luxury-utility spectrum.
Africa is a huge term just like tech and it helps to be specific. But to call tech in Africa luxury may be as presumptuous as an infamous ex Minister of Communication in Nigeria who upon the introduction of mobile phones in the country declared it as suitable only for the rich.
Undoubtedly many places in the geographical and cultural jumble called Africa are challenged by poor access to infrastructure. But lets be clear, things can change very quickly. Mpesa delivered basic banking services more widely to the largely rural masses of Kenya in 4 years than 100 years of regular forms of retail banking. Nothing says the same cannot happen in e-commerce for example.
When you go granular in anything, there is always an exception. In aggregate, we are one continent. In aggregate, we largely have common themes and common issues. One of the key undeniable issues proven by data is lack of infrastructure.
The Over The Top debate is for another time. 
