Really, throughout the literature it's not that controversial. Doing any amount of research on aid in SSA you see nearly 100% of efforts go poorly in the long term. Most arguments in the other direction have very 'interesting' definitions of success or argue a moral imperative.

It could certainly spell doom for future UBI proposals if the first prominent implementation goes badly, and it could be that it went badly due to factors that are simply not as prevalent in the West.

I think UBI will fare way worse int the West because of how many people rent places to live. UBI will get mostly sucked by landlords.

How about Eastern Europe? There are some extremely poor, yet relatively educated countries, and due to the Soviet legacy, the majority owns the places they live in.

Yes. This should work. Maybe even in Poland, surely east of Poland.

In the west I think UBI won't work well unless people who own a lot of real estate are incentivised to sell some with progressive real estate tax.