Serbia & Paypal - Do we really suck that bad?

Apparently yes. And we can't get it out of our throat.

Ok, sorry for being overly picturesque but its still that bad. The first time I went abroad for more than 10 days was 2006 in the USA. Normally, I ran into a payment method that was new for me - Paypal. It was quite cool, you basically register your bank account at a trusted site and you can use the Paypal account to pay at many many sites, without entering your credit card info. Also, you can transfer money to another paypal user, etc. But if you're being able to use internet and are reading this blog, you probably have an idea how it works :)

Anyway, you are potentially not aware how many countries are included in Paypal network. I saw the list 5 years ago and I was shocked because Serbia (and Montenegro) were not included. Back then maybe it was not 190, but 170 countries, but it doesn't change anything! And it's even worse now. Just by looking at so many countries that we consider 3rd world is not shocking for me anymore because I'm now used to that fact, but that list still makes me wonder...

I'm wondering what kind of issues are there and some of them are mentioned in this text (Serbian). If you think about politicians, they should be the elite, an extremely well educated, informed and motivated group of people. They should follow the world trends and try to implement them in Serbia if they work elsewhere. They should care about the needs of the people. But the accent here is that they should. Most of them probably never heard of Paypal, they don't need it. They are using cash, envelopes... Sorry, envelopes are too small, bigger bags are more preferable. Eventually, more sophisticated ones are using bank transfer to their uncle's companies. Basically, they don't need it and they don't care if it could be useful to the other part of the population that's a little bit technically aware and willing to make some use of the Internet. They just don't care and that's it. It's been 11 years since "democratic changes". Come oooon!

I'm not gonna dwell on reasons, I'm not an expert in the economy. But I'm happy to discuss with anyone if they think there is a legitimate reason why Paypal is still not in Serbia. And it would be so hard to convince me. If so many small and large countries all over the world have it, we can have it too. If we want. If they want. If they get their share. And if someone is really waiting for motivational %($) to push more on the matter (which basically means to stop slacking off), I just hope they never get that % they are waiting for even if Paypal would never reach Serbia.

I'm still disappointed but I hope it will change one day. Not Paypal problem, its cause.