When will the US realise that the Internet is global?
Image via Wikipedia
A client of mine gave me a $50 iTunes gift card as a thank you present for being amazingly awesome, so I decided to use it today to pre-order the new Alanis Morisette album, ‘Flavors of Entanglement’ as the iTunes pre-order has 5 bonus tracks. The link from the Alanis newsletter was to the US iTunes store which once I said I was from Australia redirected me to the Australian store. The problem is, the Australian stores does not have the Alanis album available for pre-order only the US one does. However, iTunes won’t let me buy anything from its US store as I am not located in the US.
In case Apple has not noticed, the Internet is a global entity. Why should it matter that I want to buy an album that has a worldwide release from the US store if I am located in Australia? Ok, so there is some tax shit or something, that’s fine, but then why is something that is available in the US store not available in the Australian store?
I am sick of not being able to participate fully on the internet because I am not located in the US. Can’t pre-order albums off iTunes because I am not in the US. Can’t watch TV episodes online because I am not in the US. Can’t text Twitter using a local number because I am not in the US (or in this case in the UK either).
This is the Internet! It is global and yet it seems every cool development that hits the Internet is only for users located in the US. Have you guys not realised that the rest of the fucking world exists? We want in on the fun too.
So, I won’t be using iTunes to buy the new Alanis album and am strongly debating never using the iTunes store ever again. Why bother if I can’t buy what I want to buy because I am not living in the US.
Apple either make everything available through all your iTunes stores or let users buy from whatever store they want to. Telling people that they can’t legally buy the music they want to buy will just make them get it from illegal sources. The illegal sources don’t give a shit where you live. They realise that the Internet is a global phenomenon.
If you have liked what you have read, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
May 25th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I’m too often frustrated by US-only functionality or eligibility and I think this is heightened by the fact that I’m Canadian. We share practically everything and yet still online decisive lines are drawn and the big, simple question is, why?
I’m guessing legal concerns play a significant part… but c’mon, making it over whatever the major hurdle is has to be clearly worth the benefit of increasing your online customer base and loyalty in general.
Candices last blog post..hooray for California
May 25th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Candice: This issue must be way more annoying for you than it is for me. You are on the same continent as the US and still you denied access to certain online experiences.
I agree that there is legal concerns that should be taken into account and rightly so, but you are right that the benefits to the company of having a global consumer base is greater than any initial hassle with dealing with the legal red tape. I just wish that they would see it that way.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Hi Riayn,
of all the screwed up bad customer experience stories I’ve heard lately, that one just about takes the cake.
It reinforces my view that bad customer experience is one of the main causes of software and music piracy. Left to their own devices, people will usually do the right thing.
Cheers, Andrew
Andrew Boyds last blog post..I’m still alive
May 25th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Okay I understand why you music or any media distribution is restricted on regional markets. It’s all to do with the old regional model of product distribution in the dark ages before the Internet.
Sadly the music industry labels that control the product distribution in the Itunes store (or other online music store) are the main ones to blame. They are still in the 80’s hoping the internet will just go away. They want to control the distribution as much as they can.
That does make what they are doing right, does it. The benefits of global consumerism will out weight their localised concerned if they just get their head out of the sand.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Andrew: I tried to do the right thing in this case - buy the music instead of downloading it illegally and I got screwed.
Gary: DamianM made a very interesting comment on my Twitter feed about why music that is on the US iTunes is not available on the Australian version and that is because the Australian record industry wants its slice of the profits too and therefore blocks Apple’s attempt to offer music worldwide.
I just fail to see why the Australian record industry wants to make it so hard to access good music. CD prices here are already ridiculously high that I only buy a CD that I know I am going to like and will not buy CDs of artists that I am interested in hearing their stuff. How this ‘helps’ the Australian record industry is a mystery to me.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:39 am
It’s not a one-way street either. Here in the US, I can’t access the TV replay functions of sites like the ABC or the BBC and the other UK stations (not too sure about 7 9 or 10 though).
The same goes if I want to listen to certain sports on the BBC’s Radio 5 Live like England’s overseas Cricket. And that goes also for listening (at least through the website - I know the address for it) to the ABC Grandstand broadcast of the cricket as well.
As far as iTunes is concerned, I haven’t bought any music from there in ages, but I bet you can’t find much Aussie music on the US Store. Thankfully, I can download the podcasts from anywhere in the world on there still - that’s all I use the program for, other than managing my iPod.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:47 am
I once heard that someone worked around that little snaffu by having a US email address. I don’t know the details, but I’m guessing when she was here on business or something, she registered for a US-based yahoo or something. So then, when she logged in all was good. She was then one of the few Europeans able to watch LOST right along with us.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Yeah. Sadly it’s actually a symptom of old style agreements enshrined in what’s laughingly called free trade agreements or some such twaddle. It’s like DVD regions.
Actually, my favourite example of regionalisation on the internet was when I’d bought a web site off a particular company when I was still in Australia. Used an Aussie email account, and credit card with no probs. Year later it was time to renew and suddenly I was unable to continue because they were a UK company and would only allow UK credit cards. No notification. No reasons given. And there was a lot of fuss when I tried to take my domain to a company that was more sensible… Hm.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:12 am
to think that most of the US based social networks gets most of its traffic from Asia, well unlike Korea which they are trying to invade I hope these online businesses would be more grateful to their Asian market that earns them revenue and give back to us. Otherwise I think it is high time that Asian online business should tap the potential of these market so we don’t get restricted to avail products and services that is only US-Canada available.
peterahons last blog post..4YOBlog – How old is your blog?