Thanks Nick for your thoughts. I've read Poor Economics but I'm not sure that the arguments there apply to this situation.

I definitely agree that the poor struggle with purchases that require capital investment, such as buying in bulk. My sense is that partly that is because capital is just vary scarce, and partly that is because of pressure to share any accumulated capital. But the menstrual cups aren't very expensive and would be a one-time purchase, so I'm not sure that argument applies here; although I suppose that in a sense the cup is the bulk version of disposable products.

I am less familiar with the phenomenon of selling crops out of season. Could this be a social pressure thing where everyone feels compelled to invest in the village saving group?

And, I definitely agree that preventative measures are a tough sell to the poor, pretty much across the board. That is why we fund free bednet distribution, by the way! In fact in general diffusion of preventative innovations is quite slow, which is one reason why they are often subsidized or compelled by governments. Insofar as the menstrual cups constitute a preventative, I absolutely agree we should not expect the poor to buy them. But, your analysis suggests the main benefit is financial, and with a pretty quick return on investment, so this situation seems different from that.

Do you think Living Goods is well positioned to deal with those practicalities? If not, why not?

FWIW I doubt there are many (any?) EAs that would advocate for reallocating “ all arts funding to top GiveWell charities”. Everything is at the margin!

Nick, thank you for studying this and for sharing your findings. I do think there's probably something to this space.

That said, I think you know probably more than anyone in EA how good people in poverty are at saving money. Don't you think it's unlikely that there is an option available that could save tens of dollars a year, which people are not taking advantage of on their own initiative? I doubt that achieving sufficient capital is the issue (as for example with a tin roof) if we're talking about a $7, or even $2 product.

Maybe another way of framing this is, why do you think that this is a market failure / why do you think the free market is not addressing this on its own?

I would be very curious to know if Living Goods has looked at this; I know that at one point at least they used to sell reusable pads. It seems like an obvious fit to me, and a much lower risk one than distribution for free.

Let us know what you find.

My understanding is that some electric and water utilities did a similar thing in the early days of the pandemic, for the same reasons.

If you are wondering how this change was received by the media, well

• Bloomberg: Anthropic Drops Hallmark Safety Pledge in Race With AI Peers
• The Wall Street Journal: Anthropic Dials Back AI Safety Commitments
• Gizmodo: Anthropic Rolls Back Safety Protocols as It Waits to Find Out If It’s Being Drafted by the Army
• TIME: Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge
• Engadget: Anthropic weakens its safety pledge in the wake of the Pentagon's pressure campaign

I thought this was video game jargon!

Is there a reason why the first sentence of this post would not suffice (even if perhaps moved to the end of the document)?