Why Making Money Online is Solution to World Poverty
My day job is improving schools. We make new materials, train and motivate teachers in some of the poorest areas of the world. I help thousands of teachers and millions of kids in hundreds of countries. I pour my sweat, blood, tears and my soul into this work.
By contrast I first started this “location free lifestyle” site as something not too serious. I know people who live like this, and people who want to live like this, and I know anyway can do it, but I also know that most people in rich countries won’t do it.
Today I realised that I might be targeting the wrong people. This site might be more serious than I could have possibly imagined. Maybe I shouldn’t be aiming at the richest, but the poorest areas in the world. For this “location free lifestyle” could be the way out of poverty for millions of people.
Sceptical? Let me explain, I might be wrong, but then again I might be right…
Why on Earth do the poorest people need the internet?
As I work with schools in some of the poorest areas of places like India, or this month China I always used to get annoyed by millionaire philanthropists from silicon valley going on about the “information gap” about how money should be spent on getting access to the internet for everyone. Shouldn’t we be spending the money on health care? On health education? On general education? On electricity supplies? Or even the super dream of having clean water? Surely the last thing these people need is to be able to watch Tom & Jerry cartoons on Youtube? (Which is what a lot of our kids where doing when we first gave them the internet!)
It’s the “location” part of “location free lifestyle” that’s key
But why are people poor? When you look at poverty, it’s the economic situation that is the problem, by definition of the word. And in many cases that’s because people can’t find jobs where they live, they have to move to get work. In China we have people moving hundreds of miles to live illegally in the big cities where they earn low wages and their children don’t get access to free education. In South America we hear of parents leaving children to go and work in Europe. The recent controversies with South Asian workers working in Dubai. In each case it’s because the workers couldn’t find work at home.
Da dah! Education -> Enterprise
But just a minute, isn’t that was this website is about? The tagline at the top of the page is “Make money online – live in paradise” Sometimes in rural areas it really is a paradise, but for most people paradise is their home with their families. So with a location free lifestyle you do make money online, but the location you choose as being with your family.
So maybe this idea that the poorest need the internet as much as fresh water or safe housing may indeed be true. Not because of Youtube or mp3s or online computer games, but because if you do have the internet you can earn a living online. You don’t need to move and you can stay with and feed your family.
Of course it’s not easy…
Of course there are problems. It’s nowhere near being “easy”. But if you don’t have the internet, you can’t do it at all. If you have online access then at least you have a chance. It’s not for everyone of course. Computers are complex and marketing is difficult to understand. Many of the poorest adults are illiterate and can’t just pick up a book on computing.
But poor people in developing countries aren’t stupid. They’re some of the most entrepreneurial, enterprising, smart thinking people you can imagine. You should see some of the amazing money making ideas they come up with. They’ll come up with crazy things once they are online. They’re not lazy either. Kids in the West might complain that McDonald’s is too far to walk to as they sit playing computer games all day, but the kids we teach certainly aren’t scared of hard work.
It doesn’t take long to learn how to make money online, and you can experiment as you go along. Plus if you are earning US dollars but spending rupees you’ll very quickly lift yourself out of poverty.
It doesn’t even have to be on traditional computers. In Cambodia we’re using the $100 laptops for education, all linked to the internet with a solar powered charging system. It would be so easy for these kids to start selling information products online, then their parents and teachers wouldn’t have to work 3 or 4 jobs. In Africa mobile phones may soon become the way to connect to the internet and they can do just as much as a PC.
Just a dream?
Am I being too idealistic about this? Of course! And I’ve only just made the connection this evening after watching a story about South American families on French TV (whilst I was in China!). But what we’ve seen over the last few months is that dreams do come true. And we’re just starting. As I said I always thought of this site as an extra, a bonus for the few people who would take up the challenge, or a diary for me to look back on in the future. But now I’m thinking it could be so much more than this. I need to concentrate on the “how to” of starting making money online from scratch so that anyone can do it. If you’re hungry enough.
Everyone’s lives become richer
Making money online is all about information products, what unique insight, technique, way of thinking can you bring to other people. There are billions of people who don’t have a way to express themselves like that, but they have so much knowledge. And I for one can’t wait to see what amazing products they will make and let us all experience. I’ve seen how the internet can revolutionise education. Now can it eradicate poverty?
As we say in Japan: Dekiru to omoeba Dekiru. Or as Mr Obama says it “Yes, we can”.
Be genki,
Richard
www.LocationFreeLifestyle.com
quite inspiring you are!
i´m in fact a south american young woman and i see people emigrating from my country everyday. us and europe seemed to be the solution to our economical chronical disease.
but maybe you are right and we haven´t had a better idea to solve our difficulties yet. here in uruguay the government had started a program called “plan ceibal” whose aim is “one child, one computer” and they have handed in one laptop per child in the public schools.
i hope you can develop some ideas on how teaching people to earn money working on the net. i would be really interested in trying them out myself.
thanks for your inspiring ideas again