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posted by CoolHand on Monday June 05 2017, @09:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the breeding-innovation dept.

The Islamic Republic remains in many ways cut off economically from the rest of the world. Big-name Western brands shun the market for fear of violating sanctions that remain in place even after the country's landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

That means no KFC—just local upstarts like "Iran Fried Chicken"—or credit and ATM cards connected to global banking networks. Visitors to the country must carry in thick wads of dollars. Many popular social-networking sites like Facebook are blocked by government censors.

Order from Amazon or call an Uber? Forget about it.

In their place, a surprisingly active tech startup scene has sprung up. It's driven by a growing number of Iranian millennials who see their country of 80 million people not as an isolated outcast but as a market ripe with opportunity.

Among the fastest-growing companies in the digital transformation is Snapp, the ride-hailing app Meisami uses.

He estimates he makes more than $900 working in a good month, pulling in a much larger cut per fare than he would driving for a traditional taxi-style car service. His hours are long—12 hours a day most days a week—but he likes being able to pick when and where he works.


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  • (Score: 2) by jcross on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:43PM

    by jcross (4009) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:43PM (#521281)

    It really makes me wonder whether globalization is as great as its proponents claim. The commonly cited historical example of isolationism working out badly was China, but I think the real problem there was informational isolation, not physical isolation. Sure it's simple enough to make an Uber clone, but it helps a lot to get the idea first, and these days information flows more freely than people even under oppressive regimes.

    I think barriers between places lead to stronger local industry and a higher diversity of products. If you look at manufactured goods in times when shipping was more expensive (e.g. the age of sail), certain crafts were exported, but there were still niches for local production to come in cheaper, for example most Scots would still wear local wool even if Chinese silk were available because of the price differential. The way things are going, more and more industry is concentrated in one or two global hubs, leaving everyone else dependent on it. It takes some bullshit embargo to show us how things used to be, when travelling exposed you to a radically different material culture. If the pendulum is swinging back to a world with more barriers, that might not be such a terrible thing.

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