I received
an e-mail the other day from one of the millions of “unaddressed” people of the
world, living where there are no street names or building numbers. He lives in
Ghana, and does have a postal code, a
code which resolves to a GPS location so that Ghana Post can deliver to
him. But that’s his problem – it’s only
used currently by Ghana Post. He would like to order from companies outside Ghana,
but they all require a street address and none will accept the Ghana GPS code,
nor a latitude/longitude. What to do? I wish I’d had a short-term solution for
him.
There are
around 30 global code systems that are eager to fill the unaddressed gap, and a further 20 or so which work
at a national level. No organisation would be keen on implementing all 50
systems in their online retail portals – in fact, few organisations seem keen
to implement any at all, despite companies such as What3Words throwing
ridiculous amounts of money around to try to be the default choice for adoption.
Adoption by a one organisation wouldn’t be sufficient – the whole chain,
including all delivery companies, would need to adopt the same code system
too. Would Ghana Post be willing to deliver
mail using another company’s code system?
Regardless,
some of these code systems have been around for a number of years, and their adoption
rates, despite their best efforts, remains low.
There are good reasons for this. Postal address systems are very varied, both
within and between countries, but most consist of similar sets of information
and all, to a greater or lesser extent, can be interpreted by using something
we all have with us at all times – our brains. What3Words likes to market itself
as new and edgy, a start-up; but it was founded in 2013 – almost middle aged, in
my book. They’re haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. In the good old days, questions
would be asked about a company that wasn’t even close to even covering its
costs after 8 years. But it appears that investors will continue to throw their
money into this pit despite increasing rates of negative publicity about its
many flaws. What3Words, in their overweening conceit, simply will not accept
that their system is anything other than perfect, despite obvious proof otherwise.
This will be to their cost – there’s only so much their marketing can do to
hide the facts. At what point should it become clear that What3Words and other,
similar, systems are not what people are looking for? The amount What3Words
spends on marketing and legal procedures each year could provide a lot of
Ghanaians with the infrastructure required to give them the addresses they
sorely need. I know where I
would prefer to see this money spent.
