Perhaps I need to open my eyes widely, read and research more to find useful homegrown dependable free services that can become integral to my life. A thought crossed my mind though about reasons South Africa is not launching many homegrown solutions available to users for free as we see many such solutions from international players. The relative absence of such free solutions is not owing to South Africans lacking innovation, because we know and can see how creative our fellow citizens can be in solving and overcoming challenges. I am an active user of one such freely available solutions in EskomSePush App. But what other innovative free solutions are out there? By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 October 2022.
We can virtually conduct professional business activities electronically and throughout for free today using solutions available on the Internet, from a suite of products from Google such as spreadsheets, word processors, messaging, communication, calendar, and collaboration to other open-source products for project management, invoicing, office and business administration, and training, among others. Yet, it is difficult finding similar products tailored for the local conditions. If such exist, they are not well-promoted, and those I know of, require some form of a fee to be accessed. The fee is either directly levied, or a cut of the overall cost of whatever is consumed.
I long for a situation we could proudly use locally made solutions without concerns about additional fees payable for their usage. I know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but that those “freeware” make money by selling information about our identity and/ or consumption or online activities. But even those paid services “exploit” our information for their increased commercial opportunities. We may as well use services for free in exchange of the inevitable extended usage of our private information.
If we cannot produce precedent setting solutions, we can do what China used to do before it became the powerhouse it is today, by “copying” existing designs and varying them with the local flavour. On deeper reflection, it seems our issues have more to do with having limited pool of “angel” investors, or seed or private investors as they are widely known. Alternatively, there may be many such investors locally, except that they could be employing more stringent conditions for funding than their international counterparts would. All this is pure speculation and could be totally incorrect. However, it is bewildering for South Africa to have such limited availability of free homegrown solutions.
If anything, this to me shows that we prefer being followers to being counted among pioneers believing in homegrown solutions that can be taken internationally. Many international players offer solutions already available in the market, and not all globally appealing solutions are unique. Many are a variation or an improvement of what is already known and widely used. We cannot even use the excuse of there being other global player solutions as reasons for not venturing on similar homegrown solutions.
Nevertheless, these freely available solutions are not easy and cheap to run. They attract huge operational costs and require highly professional management services to ensure they are always available, can perform and are dependable for regular usage. Such operations require extensive outlay of capital, and such capital outlay requires healthy returns on investment for sustainability. I do not think local conditions are suitable for such operations.
Sometime in June 2022, it was widely reported that the homegrown “Takealot” online service was making losses in the hundreds of millions of Rand despite their increased revenue earned. We know that e-commerce platforms are not yet performing at their peak in this country because of consumers’ preference still, for consuming services and products from traditional brick and mortar businesses. But for a service such as Takealot to not be profitable after dominating the market this long, is concerning. Perhaps, the Takealot situation may not be a good comparative example to use, as the service is not widely used. Its limited usage is accompanied by a consumer directly paying for something. Unlike other free services widely available to many consumers, these are integral to their daily lives than a Takealot would be. For a service to be commercially viable, it needs to be simple, focused and have fewer complicated offerings and settings. The moment it starts having many features and trying to be impressive, it is when it begins to be unsustainable, complex, inefficient and costly to own and operate.
Perhaps a day will come soon, when consumers will be spoiled for choice with many homegrown solutions on offer and competing with global solutions. I do pray for such a day to come in my lifetime!
