When Will the US Netizens Learn to Value What They Take for Granted?

I don’t live in the US myself only coming to California for business when needed. When you do the business completely online it is not even all that frequently – unless there is some very important event to attend. But living here in Russia I have experienced (and am experiencing) quite a number of limitations that are common for many countries except for the US. At the same time the majority of internet users in the US take everything they have for granted without realizing how much people from elsewhere in the world are willing to give for that simple thing – but never getting it anyway. And I can’t help but feel irritated quite frequently when I see US friends complaining about the limitations they face online because they can hardly imagine how different the world wide web is elsewhere in the world.

The irony is that every time that I talk to my friends in the US about some limitations that we here (or elsewhere in the world) face, they are invariably surprised as they actually have no idea such limitations exist at all as all the web treasures seem to be just natural for them. So I thought that I’d mention some of the hugest limitations here for anyone willing to know and for some web entrepreneurs to think again of the huge internet population outside of the US that may be difficult to monetize but is often more willing to pay for your services because we actually view some services like treasures that we are deprived of.

These limitations are difficult to live with when you simply want to enjoy all the good things that internet has to offer but they grow twice as difficult if you try to run a business online focused on the US users (those that are best monetized, of course) as you will have no option but incorporating in the US in many cases if you want to actually earn something. And incorporation in the US is not cheap if you use services of an attorney to prepare everything for you and fly to the US to open a corporate bank account. But still everyone seems to think that we are actually very willing to claim we are the US businesses to be trusted while in reality we simply have no other options at all. Really, I’d be more than willing not to keep Profy as a Russian company only instead of incorporating in the US additionally if I could have a normal US bank account and a business PayPal account for a company registered here – but since it does not work we really have no choice but doing this.

And this brings me to the hugest limitation of all – money. The problem is that many of the money-related services are often unwilling to work with people outside of the US at all – due to the great deal of regulations involved in offering international users the same level of service that the US users enjoy. The first obvious example that we’ve discussed here recently is PayPal that is offering to people in many countries more or less limited services. For example, here in Russia we are totally unable to receive money via PayPal – even though we can create accounts, verify our identities and send money from our credit cards. And Russia is only one among dozens of countries where PayPal works in the same manner with people in these countries very concerned about the situation because many freelancers often depend on international customers for their revenues but can’t work with these customers using the simple tools that are default for these customers working with freelancers in more lucky countries. And of course there are many countries where PayPal does not even work at all – so we in Russia and countries with a similar level of service are actually in a relatively good position.

But while PayPal is mostly used for business – be it for running your company or handling your freelance payments – there is another money-related issue that is important for many regular people around the world: the issue of buying from online stores. And while it may seem like buying something online is a real no-brainer, it may really be otherwise if you are not buying from a local store but are attempting to buy something from a major retailer like Amazon and have it sent to your home address – some thousands of miles away from any US state.

Unfortunately, online shopping seems to be easy only when it comes to local shops (yes, we do have a selection). But many international users will confirm that buying anything beyond CDs and books on Amazon will not work as they won’t deliver it here. What’s more, some online stores don’t even allow you to pay with a non-US issued credit cards. But as it is hidden somewhere in the ToS, I was in a situation when I paid for an item and ordered delivery to a friend of mine in the US or to our office – only to be notified by the store that they can not deliver my purchase because I paid with a non-US card. After that I spent a whole month talking to my bank explaining that the purchase did not actually happen and the blocked amount would not really be charged because the store would not deliver anything my way. Believe me, the process of persuading a US online store to process your card if it has been issued somewhere in Europe, for example, even though paying with a credit card is usually such a triviality, may be a hideous one full of misunderstanding and suspicions.

And I know that by now you are already at a loss about why I (along with many other “international users”) would deal with all the hassle involved in shopping US-based e-retailers when I can purchase the same items at home easily. But the explanation is very simple as it is all about price: the people around the world want prices as they are in the US, not as they are here – twice or even trice the US price.

And the example of the prices most US people would never believe in are numerous here. I have already mentioned that here in Russia users will actually have to pay $1,000 to purchase the most desirable gadget – iPhone – unless they bring it from the US and unlock here (illegal but cost-efficient and popular). My German friend buys his electronics in the US when visiting the country because he says that the prices are 1.5 times lower in the States.

I myself bought my current Sony Vaio laptop last year in China when on vacation instead of waiting for the next visit to the US because I realized that the laptop costs the same amount both in the country where it is manufactured and in the US – and twice as much as I would pay at home. And I don’t even want to mention simple items like clothes (how about Levi’s jeans for $120-$150?) or baggage (I purchased my Delsy bag in the US because it was 3 times cheaper than at home) – everything is ridiculously overpriced and if you are capable of browsing international shopping sites you will no doubt understand that the home prices are not exactly fair and will want to switch to shopping in the US only forever. So it is no surprise that the majority of my international Twitter followers when asked about the most disturbing online limitations quoted restrictions on online shopping as one of the worst factors of all.

And, finally, I have recently found out that some online services actually charge higher their non-US users. For example, Marjolein Hoekstra of CleverClogs shared discriminating pricing politics of Lumosity, the brain training service, on Twitter: the thing is that Lumosity will charge 25% higher for subscription if an IP address of the user is identified as coming from Europe and not from the US. I have not heard of other such examples but I’m quite sure they exist so do share them in the comments below if you know of any.

But while all these money-related issues are important to many users, there are people in the world who can’t even access the sites that are a big part of lives of internet users from countries with better understanding of what freedom of speech is. China must be the most prominent example as Chinese people simply can not access multiple services that are just natural to us: international blogging platforms like Blogger or LiveJournal, Wikipedia, Feedburner (which means that they can’t even read many blogs by RSS as a huge number of bloggers choose Feedburner to handle our feeds). And of course multiple international news outlets are blocked in China as well.

And even in the countries that more or less enjoy freedom of speech there are certain things that are natural to US users but are unrealistic dreams elsewhere – usually these are sites focused on providing free access to music and videos or TV shows. These services are often not supported outside of the US because the advertisers that make existence of such sites possible do not want to showcase their brands to people outside of the US because they either don’t know the market exists or don’t want to pay to reach out to these users as they don’t even bother to study the international markets and their capacity. Among such sites are the famous free TV and video site Hulu (and all its successors including the recently launched Sling) and free radio Pandora. What’s more, I personally would have loved to pay for access to some sites (Hulu included) from Russia and I know many international users would have done the same but we don’t have any options here as the website owners prefer to pretend we don’t exist and mention various licensing complications as an excuse instead of even trying to come up with a solution.

Besides, how natural is it for you to buy and download a song from iTunes Store? I believe it is nothing unusual to a US user (and a lucky user in some other countries) but it is not like this everywhere. For example, here in Russia iTines software allows me to browse stores from different supported countries (just out of curiosity to see what I could enjoy if I had been allowed to pay) but it will not allow me to buy anything – even if I wanted to buy every singly application available for iPhone (the recent calculation is that it could cost me over $30 thousand to buy everything available now).

And finally there is another strange thing that I think is worth mentioning: international users are often deprived of decent advertising on the sites we browse because usually good campaigns are only targeted at the US users. So as an international user on the majority of blogs running ads from self-serving advertising networks (those willing to work with smaller blogs) I will invariably see the usual “You are the 10,000^th visitor, this is no joke, you have won” or the Smiley Central ads – simply because normal advertisers (those that do not distract you from what you are doing on the site with their ads but offer their banners as a valuable and often useful message) do not want to reach out to you. And while bad ads are certainly not the worst thing on this list, they are also an integral part of interne browsing experience and I guess such poor ads often make international users switch their ad blocking plugins on – and leave the publishers without any revenue off our presence on their sites.

Here is my list of the limitations international internet users have to deal with – these are those I experience myself and those shared by my friends on Twitter in my small poll to see what people are mostly concerned about. If you are an international user like I am, feel free to grumble about the most depressing limitations in the comments below while all the more lucky US users are encouraged to share your opinion on how you would feel if you faced such limitations yourself.

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