TLDR: You saw the twitter post, what the hell are you complaining about?

So, I’ve got this keyboard that comes with my Sony Xperia called POBox Touch or somesuch. It’s one of my favourite keyboards, mostly because it doesn’t do anything I don’t want it to do when I don’t expect. Also, in the days before Gingerbread, it had arrow keys. Being a Japanese keyboard, it’s primarily there for when this phone is sold in that market.

Recently, I decided it could use a facelift. The other keyboards on my phone changed their look along with the OS in the upgrade to gingerbread, leaving POBox out of touch with the rest of the UI. But HUZZAH! Skins are available! from the android market no less! This should be easy! Except… where is the install button? It turns out android market won’t let me install them because they’re “not available in your devices country.”

What. The. Balls.

Firstly, I had to go to android market’s website to find this out, the app doesn’t even say why it’s not showing the install button. Secondly, IT’S A KEYBOARD SKIN. I don’t care what kind of preposterous legal reason you have for this, but it makes no sense. It’s free. Are you somehow making less money because I want to download this outside of Japan? no. Even if it did cost money, there’s no US distributor that licensed this “app” that I should be sending my money through instead, so why the restriction (not that I approve of this silly behavior either)

Maybe in the land of some US distributor actually having put in the work to import and adapt (maybe) and package and sell a product from another country the practice of restricting sales based off of country makes sense. (They’ve paid for and put in the work for you, and you go buy around them? kindof puts them in a fix, doesn’t it, I suppose) This however, is the internet.

Shipping doesn’t cost money, translation/localization doesn’t cost money (IT’S A KEYBOARD SKIN) these imaginary country lines your drawing across the internet really are just imaginary. They’re also making life for the consumer more difficult if you happen to not provide a product/service in a particular area and there’s no other way to get it in that area.

I see how this is a leftover from before internet in that if netflix were to suddenly offer service to the entire internet, then distribution deals that the studios had with other publishing companies would go south and whatnot, but there in lies the mistake. The internet should have been treated as a new country to begin with. It would not only make everyones digital consumerizing life easier, but content providers wouldn’t have to manage all this crap. Licensed for internet distribution? sweet. done. Somebody in Germany wants to buy it? cool, we took care of that when we licensed it for purchase on the internet.

Sure, localization for some things will still need to be done, but if somebody wants to buy the original version, whether it’s because they prefer it or if there is no local version available, why stop them? How does deliberately not making a sale make any business sense?