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Re:Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shippin... by nradov on Friday January 12, 2018 @09:03AM (#16132830)
This isn't really a matter of computers helping or not helping people. The issue is with the delivery service. They need some reliable way to find the right destination.
Re:Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shippin... by gumby on Friday January 12, 2018 @10:12AM (#16133434)
My reading of the article is quite different from yours. The author writes,

> I can only tell you that I live in Kanyanya, a Kampala suburb. If you need my exact home, then I’ll either have to send you a GPS location via apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, Google Maps or engage you in a long phone conversation in which I’ll try to describe landmarks, building and trees leading to my house. But street address, zip code? Hell No.

And says that despite that, the web forms ask for nonsensical data. The right thing is for the delivery location validator to take GPS, phone number, list of landmarks, etc, canonicalize it as best it can, and send that info to the delivery company. Not try to fit the delivery info into some Procrustean form.

Re:Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shippin... by Leader2light on Friday January 12, 2018 @12:16PM (#16134448)
That is all much more cost intensive. Think of a delivery guy trying to sort through all that crap. List of landmarks? What a joke.
Re:Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shippin... by gumby on Friday January 12, 2018 @02:03PM (#16135369)
That’s what we pay them for. And there’s no reason why waze or maps couldn’t use landmarks for navigation.