I read about halfway through this article thinking it sounds good, but they used insubstantive marketing language terms like "new innovations", "big ideas", "safely and securely", "flexible adaptable technologies", and "dreaming big but thinking locally" so many times that it gave the game away. In addition there are no down sides described, the alternatives are demonized, and there is no real technical explanation. It's indistinguishable from a full page magazine ad. It is clear is a paid placement by advocates for a concept, and not a real article from a journalist. I then glanced up to see what site is running this sort of puff article and was genuinely surprised to see National Geographic is now doing this sort of thing. I guess the journalist needs some practice so he can learn to hide his tells in future product placements.
I didn't get that impression. The company I work for sells services in the area of mobile payments, and M-Pesa really is the "holy grail" that many companies worldwide are trying to imitate. I visited Kenya in April, and it is everywhere. In the middle of nowhere along the roadsides you see little green shacks with the M-Pesa logo where you can collect money that has been sent to you. However, M-Pesa is not without its downsides. Safaricom is stagnant on adding features, and getting a "pay bill" number for your business so that you can accept payments from customers is a lengthy and somewhat complicated process. On the other hand, this opens new doors for entrepreneurs to fill in the gaps.
I don't think the argument was that M-Pesa isn't something real and substantive, it's that the article was a poorly done puff piece. Honestly, I got as much from your one paragraph write up about M-Pesa as I did from the original article.
I think you're looking at the article in an overly-cynical way.
"M-Pesa is not an attempt to recreate developed countries’ banking systems in Africa. Instead, it’s an idea which has been tailored to the Kenyan environment. Rather than giving up on poor, isolated communities as unbankable, it has extended financial services to their most apparently unlikely customers."
Where exactly are the alternatives demonized? The author simply suggests that tailoring a solution to an environment (in this case, Kenya) is ultimately more beneficial to those within the environment than a one-size-fits-all approach that only serves a privileged few.
"no real technical explanation"
The article may not necessarily have been geared for technical readers. Instead the author chose to emphasize the ease of use.
Also, I don't get the impression that alternatives were demonized.
Does not explain that it only works because the tellco is a public company (otherwise your money with them would be invested in risk) and the usabilities issues that allow a.lot of theft via social engineering.
