To be clear, I don't personally endorse Worldcoin and am not an investor, nor do I have particular admiration for Sam Altman. I just fundamentally question the notion of "victimless" crimes. In my view, consensual transactions between adults shouldn't be illegal and it seems to me that this is what is occurring here. As to why this is happening in Kenya, I wouldn't be surprised if they failed to "persuade" the right bureaucrats (a problem that many African entrepreneurs face[0]). According to Reuters, Worldcoin is currently "orbing" in 20 countries by the way[1].
At one point in the 70s, the Indian government started offering people money to voluntarily get sterilized. These people didn’t have a free choice in the matter, their situation in life compelled them, in this particular case financially. It’s not an infringement of someone’s freedom, rather an exploitation of the poor situation that individual is already in.
Why call this situation an "exploitation" when all parties involved are better off from the transaction? And if it is truly a "life or death" situation, how is it moral to ban a life saving option?
If Kenyans are getting life-saving money in exchange for their iris scan, how is banning this arrangement helping them? Aren't they in a better position than you, or government bureaucrats, to judge what is best for them?
I believe Worldcoin is live in Germany. Also, it’s kind of unreasonable to expect a startup to pull off a global launch without a hitch. Assuming good faith, I suspect issues will be resolved over time.
Yes, that's entirely why they've gone into mostly developing countries (I'd think it'd be easier for a startup to pull of a global launch focusing on more developed countries, for a variety of reasons) offering people almost a week's salary to have their eyeball scanned (Kenya's average monthly salary is USD$420, and Worldcoin was offering effectively $70 to sign up).
The tech industry in general lost the "benefit of the doubt" years ago. That's not WC's fault, but WC could have mitigated some of that if they at least put some effort into not appearing shady.
Particularly since they're connected to cryptocurrency, which is one of the scummier segments of the industry to begin with.
How about we change the angle a bit: why do you think this happened in Kenya and not in Germany?