5mo ago

Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

Cloud costs for Nigerian companies have shot up after the naira depreciated sharply because most U.S. cloud companies charge in dollars.
Several local cloud startups have sprung up in the last two years. They offer the option to pay in naira, along with data sovereignty and lower latency.
Amazon Web Services started accepting payments in naira in January this year, which experts believe is a reaction to local competition.

10 comments

It would be hilarious if there started to be real competition in cloud services from nations in the global south, especially if they start innovating in a way that makes AWS/Azure/Google Cloud become low performance options.
If nothing else, real competition would make standards for cloud services more universal.
- They would need to seriously invest in transcontinental Internet cables to Africa. As with most things the west left the continent behind.
  
  Fair point, although the way things are going you might see investment in telecom connections between Africa, Europe, and Asia. Particularly with China pushing Belt and Road.
Sounds like an Onion headline.
Isnt nigeria basically the only african country right now that isnt a shithole right now? I dont mean this against africans, im just saying that the effects of colonalism can still be seen on every part of africa and its pretty bad to see.
- I’m going to suggest you to reword your comment. Because I’m pretty sure it will be interpreted as racist and offensive by some, and I would agree with them. Calling someone’s homeland a “shithole” sucks, especially something as vague as an entire continent. I understand you don’t exactly mean it that way, but in that case, maybe use less insulting language.
  But anyways, regarding your question, I guess there are a lot of “richer” African countries (Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana etc.) Nigeria is not necessarily the richest.
- Isnt nigeria basically the only african country right now that isnt a shithole right now?
  Nigeria probably has the most theoretical wealth available to it of any African country because it's super rich in oil, but there are definitely other countries that have it better than Nigeria (South Africa, Cape Verde, maybe Namibia or Kenya if you want some deeper cuts). Nigeria also has a metric fuck ton of problems (religious tension and sectarianism, terrorism, an openly corrupt political system which likely stole the last presidential election, and constant economic turmoil) that severely rob its capability to exploit its riches. and yes colonialism is a big part of that, it has fairly bad deals with major corporations to exploit that oil
  
  Hmm interesting. I just commented from the view of someone who has african friends and the only ones who can afford to move here to study and just for the quality of life are the ones from nigeria and south africa. But being a white south african is cheating because of the basically segregation that happens there.
- shell...

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