Night in Tunisia

An Underground Economy

I was just walking down our main avenue, the avenue de cafés (so nick-named because there are loads of them), and noticed a little something that seems particular to Tunisia.

All over the place there are shops where you can get "Gravures de CD" or cd's burned for all your computing or music or video needs. Need the latest software upgrade? Go get it burned down the street. I suppose that given the high price of the stuff and the rather low incomes earned here, it only makes sense that an alternative supply needed to be found... In any case, there doesn't seem to be any legislative impediment given that there are police everywhere (as an addendum to that, nasty crimes are very uncommon - which is kind of nice).

Actually, what surprised me was not so much the plentiful black market supply (or is it grey if it's not stopped by the authorities?), but to see a video store that offers up VHS, DVD and DivX rentals...

Just a little spot of news for the techno-geeks of the world

posted by Loren @ 10:32 a.m.