There are a lot of people living in poor conditions in the world, and a programmer in any country is near the middle-to-upper end of the spectrum. His situation is unfortunate, but he messed up.
On a similar note: my current lab-mate lives in a pretty bad apartment in Boston right now. It is habitable and up to code, but run down and occasionally the heat goes out... He provided me some prospective by telling me about the one-room, dirt-floor house he grew up in where his parents raised 11 children while working as subsistence farmers in Nepal. That makes luke-warm water and 5Mbps internet seem much fancier.
I pray that some day everyone can live the life of a poor to middle class American, but we are not there yet. I also don't think that being fired is an excessive punishment for fraud/theft at work. I would feel much differently if the story ended with hime being jailed or abused by the police, but the whole point of Odesk is to give everyone a chance and I feel that he got one.
>> I disagree that he was being exploited.
Yes, I think that might be what this whole thing hinges on.
LOL, keep telling yourself that. Having a 'lower cost of living' doesn't excuse paying a software developer a much lower rate than the rest of the world.
>> Maybe situations that involve basically exploiting workers in other countries need a bit more sensitivity.
I disagree that he was being exploited. Yes, he was being paid a lot less than someone in the US but the cost of living where he is is probably much, much lower. And like you say he has a nice job as a computer programmer. He's obviously a smart guy. He can create another account, or use a different site.