I've just read an interview to a Danish artist/enterpreneur who invented a low cost light bulb, trying to promote it to a poor African village.
The reaction he got when he explained the project was "Yeah, it's a cute idea, but this is a prosperous village, you should try to sell it to the poorer village down the road".
He then moved to the next village, which had the same level of average earning, but proposing his light-bulb as an appliance for rich people, this time receiving a lot more interest. The artist later remodeled the bulb, keeping it low-cost but giving it a fancier appearance to suit this image of a light for rich dwellings in poor villages.
It should come to no surprise to LWers that people are almost exclusively interested in things that raise their social status, even when understanding their situation would be the first thing to do to get out of it.
This raises an interesting question: if you were offering a service that tried to help people, how would you reframe it so that users would not feel devalued?