My personal frustration is that when things do get localized, the localization is sometimes outright <i>wrong</i>. Like, the person who's doing the localization didn't even do basic fact checking on what language a country speaks.<p>I'd rather have access to the US English pages (which are useful) than a language I don't speak (which makes it clear your products are made by doofuses).<p>Also why on earth does no-one respect Accept-Language and uses GeoIP instead? Do people in SV just never travel?
The reason it's not supported is not because "Fuck you", but because supporting a feature is not as easy as just rolling it out.<p>What's important is what happens AFTER the rollout. Most people (like the author) have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and just think it would be a simple thing, and criticize the company based on this assumption.<p>But I am sure these same people will be the ones who complain the most when the company <i>does</i> end up rolling out the half-baked features.
The primary reason for not providing services in "rest of the world" is apparently "fuck you".<p>The same applies to not respecting your language of choice.<p>But the absolute worst is American companies (it's always American services, and not just because of US dominance) manipulating content based on GeoIP and giving me a shitty localized version of their service for no legal or commercial reason.<p>It's infuriatingly patronizing.
Does anyone have great examples of localization done right? I'm trying to build an internationalized web application right now and I am interested in best practices.<p>Edited: I mean web applications that work well for international users (e.g., ltr and rtl direction, taking countries and languages into account, etc.).
Separate issue, but I'm quite frustrated with countries being lumped together by geographic proximity regardless of culture and language. It's possible to drive from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg or Riga on a single tank, but as Dota matchmaking will thoroughly demonstrate, it might as well be a different planet.
Yep, it's incredibly frustrating that even though I speak fluent English, and a product is available in English, I can't purchase/use the product, because I'm in the wrong region.
Wait until GDPR kicks in on May 25, 2018. ANY company that collects data on EU citizens (Name, phone number, email adress, geo location) will be required to comply or be subject to 20 million euro fines. So your Apple Store app that you offer for free because you use it to collect data? You must hire a Data Protection Officer (DPO)and be able to erase a user's data on request. I predict that will lead to blocking EU citizens from many services outright to avoid having to comply with an onerous regulation.
The page doesn't display without JavaScript, and it even breaks Firefox's Reader mode. Anyone have a link to the plain text? I'd kinda like to read the article as-is.