Regional restrictions are always a bit terrifying to navigate because there are so many one-way streets. Change your Spotify credit card 2 years after you moved, realize you now can’t access a bunch of music you previously could. Same with a bunch of cross-region stuff.
I get so much of this is downstream of rights agreements and ultimately I don’t have the right to keep everything forever, but it’s annoying!
Paying for a iCloud family plan, but your "country" is different from theirs? Yes you can share storage, but not TV/Music subscription...
Don't even get me started on EV charging apps that are only available in local app store.
Decided to switch country on your account so you can finally download above? Well cancel all your Family Subscriptions first (it might take up to 2 weeks for Apple's servers to update and we will keep iCloud data for 2 weeks).
A few months ago Google suddenly emailed me saying they're changing my account region to Russia, the country threatening to invade us, and I couldn't figure out a way to do anything about it. It was quite insulting.
My theory for why is that I used a Finnish VPN, and Google famously uses outdated GeoIP databases which believed the IP to be in Russia, despite every other public lookup I could find saying it's in Finland. Whenever I would visit a Google site not logged in, it'd be served in Russian. So eventually they decided I must be Russian.
Of course, monopolists force you to pay extortionist prices for their services in your local market, while they get to take advantage of the global market to keep down their expenses, and move their revenue around to avoid taxes. If corporations get to be global citizens, why can't humans be free to buy anywhere in the world, and move anywhere in the world however they please.
I’m pretty convinced this will result in a loss. People savvy enough to use a VPN and pull this trick are also savvy enough to use ad blockers and most likely do use them already. So now instead of Google getting $2/month (or whatever the price these people were paying), they get $0. Congrats I guess!
I tried this out a couple of years ago as more of an experiment than anything else. $20 for a years worth of Argentinian YouTube or whatever it was. Within a couple of hours they locked my account and kept my money.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 46.6 ms ] threadI get so much of this is downstream of rights agreements and ultimately I don’t have the right to keep everything forever, but it’s annoying!
You meant to write "ultimately I don’t have the right to keep _renting a time limited access_ to everything forever"
If the music is in your hard drive, you have the ability to keep it forever.
And the right to do so.
Don't even get me started on EV charging apps that are only available in local app store.
Decided to switch country on your account so you can finally download above? Well cancel all your Family Subscriptions first (it might take up to 2 weeks for Apple's servers to update and we will keep iCloud data for 2 weeks).
My theory for why is that I used a Finnish VPN, and Google famously uses outdated GeoIP databases which believed the IP to be in Russia, despite every other public lookup I could find saying it's in Finland. Whenever I would visit a Google site not logged in, it'd be served in Russian. So eventually they decided I must be Russian.
By the way, I wonder if that kind of geo-discrimination would be legal in the eu.