Living in developing countries hurts creators

In more ways you can even imagine

I bet you haven’t thought about this before. The two things don’t seem to be related, right? But if you think about it, creators from developing countries are facing many difficulties in working online than the creators living in developed ones.

Let’s take Medium and its partner program for this example. To be eligible to get paid here you must have a Stripe account, but it’s available in not so many countries. So, people from the rest of the world had to find a way to open an account just to be paid for their hard work.

That’s several steps someone needs to do before doing one simple, and for many people, normal thing.

I’m one of those people. I’ve opened one virtual account to get the account number from Stripe supporting country then opened my Stripe and was finally able to join the partner program. This means that by the time I receive the money at least two platforms took the commission and I got less money than I’ve earned.

Another example is PayPal. I know it might come shocking to many people, but there are countries where PayPal is not yet introduced and you can’t use it. Not for paying not for receiving money. And even if you can open the account and receive money, you can’t withdraw it from your bank account because it will cost you a lot and you will lose almost everything you have.

Besides writing on Medium and my blog, I also have an Etsy store and I was lucky enough to open it before Etsy decided that only creators from countries eligible for Etsy Payment can open an Etsy store. It’s the same countries supported by Stripe. This means that many creators are left without a major platform to earn (passive) income just because they live in a developing country.

I will mention one more platform that creators can use to both grow email lists and sell digital products — ConverKit. Last year ConvertKit introduced a new tool called ConvertKit Commerce. That tool allows you to sell digital products and subscriptions to your existing audience and to grow your audience by getting new subscribers. It sounds awesome and easy to use, but there is one big problem, there are many unsupported countries and one less opportunity for creators.

It’s not just about platforms where you can share your work and earn money, it’s also about your home country’s laws. For example, where I live, freelancers’ needs and requirements are not recognized and defined by any law. They are required to pay taxes but the government itself has no idea how to regulate that area of work. You have no rights only obligations, and it’s legal nightmare where you lose more money than you can earn.

So next time you share how easy it is to start a side hustle and have passive income think about creators living in developing countries where there are far fewer opportunities and means.

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