Yeah already saw that.
What I found most disappointing was the response of customer support, which rather than trying to understand customers' problems and responding assiduously, flatly give out a non solution (use cards that work) and provide zero alternatives or an extension till they resolve this issue.
After reading multiple raving reviews here and elsewhere, I decided to use Backblaze for remote backups.
This Feb, my payment (auto debit via CC) failed, and upon logging in could not figure out any other way to pay.
I soon received an interesting email from them ( https://i.imgur.com/p19SaFX.png ) which said they do not support Reserve Bank of India (RBI) 's e-mandate policy and advised me to use a card which does not include e-mandate. European customers have a similar issue due to 3D Secure.
I as an Indian citizen only have RBI authorized credit cards, which have been on e-mandate since late 2021. I have faced a similar issue with card auto debit on other websites as well due to this policy, however they all support alternate payment methods.
Backblaze does not, and has provided no alternative since this cropped up 2 months ago. Customer support has no solution as well. I just received an email that failing further payment, my account will go poof next month.
How a company running a critical service such as backups can screw up so badly regarding a fundamental business requirement such as billing is beyond me. They will simply cease operating for almost all European / Indian customers in a little over a month's time.
Even if they manage to dig themselves this, not sure one can trust them enough to continue being a "going concern".
This reminds me of this quote from one of my all time favorite books, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency :
<quote>
The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.
</quote>
Completely agree, did it in a few countries and truly enjoyed the freedom of stopping anywhere I wanted, wherever I encountered beautiful surroundings, and staying as long as I wanted, not to forget enjoying the place on my own rather than among a busload of fellow travelers.
Must say though that the Swiss certainly make this much easier to do with their excellent public transport and the Swiss Pass, which is your single ticket to go almost anywhere in the country including trains, buses, subway, boats and even cable cars! In the few cases its not included, you get a discounted rate. However parts of the country are so lovely that hiking through them is the only way to truly appreciate their beauty!
In India, you can book an appointment for MRI scans at private clinics the very same day or at worst within 1-2 days. Costs about USD 100 or lesser.
There is also this startup - https://qure.ai (Not my employer, I know someone who works there) which has already automated the report generation part for several classes of X Ray / CT / Ultrasound scans. This takes away the requirement of having a trained Radiologist to go through the scan and then create a report, which certainly helps in scaling the availability of such scans - you just need the machine and trained staff to operate it, and are not dependent upon having a doctor with a postgrad in radiology to write the reports.
In India, apps like Google Pay (which runs on UPI platform) require you to first unlock the app using your screen lock method and then also require entry of a pin to confirm any kind of money transfer.
This is a false assertion.
I have gone through sample birth certificates of multiple states in India, I did not find any of them mentioning caste.
Caste certificate is a separate document, issued only upon application, which can then be used as proof for applying for reservation benefits.
Completely agree with what you say.
To get through the inertia during the pandemic, I finally got started with reading Upanishads and ended up reading 6. A lot of content may not make sense, but there were such absolute profound gems of wisdom that I was astonished how someone sitting in a forest thousands of years ago could go into the depths of thought in order to produce such deep insights.
A few years down the line I hope to enter into a guru-shishya (teacher-disciple) regimen to understand more of it, the way it is supposed to be learnt.
For those interested, Aitareya Upanishad by Swami Chinmayanand would be a pretty good book to get started with, it has commentary which most of us should easily understand.
There may be some truth in the "too woke for normie crowd" allegation.
Earlier this year, much before the bad news went global for Netflix, Reed Hastings said this about experience in India during an earnings call:
"The great news is in every single other major market, we've got the flywheel spinning. The thing that frustrates us is why we haven't been as successful in India. But we're definitely leaning in there,"
The general opinion in India is that unlike Prime Video India and Disney Hotstar (Disney Plus' Indian avatar) which created a lot of good local content which served the interest of masses and hence achieved success, a lot of Netflix' local content mostly served the tastes of a sub-segment of the well earning, well traveled elite crowd (read "woke") from the bigger cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Apparently this was because the local producers came from the same group and were not tuned to the tastes of the country at large (or even the affluent segment at large). Many of them have since been fired and Netflix India has also gone ahead and reduced monthly subscription for the standard plan to only INR 199 and a new mobile only plan for only INR 149 (~ USD 2). Has not made much of a difference in the past few months though.
This is a brilliant book. You get major new insights every few pages, and many of them are highly relatable with your own experiences with sleep. Probably goes a bit overboard with some of its claims but even then there is too much good in it. Considering we spend anywhere between 25-30% of our lives on this one activity, its almost criminal how we ignore its importance.
