Philanthropy in a nutshell.
On a more serious note, I couldn't agree more. Any sort of international metric for poverty (like the $2 here) is downright useless because it ignores all the local context.
> I hope you will be touched by their stories, their challenges, and their dreams for better lives. I also hope that you’ll ask yourself what you can do to help the millions of people like them.
You could ask people in the US living below the poverty line and reach this same conclusion. Hell, you could give away 50 bucks directly to a person living in a country with a crappy economy and literally change their life, instead of filming them with thousands of dollars worth cameras to "inspire" people in the west. That's why I prefer GiveDirectly.org over any other charity that attempts to fight poverty.