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This doesn't even consider the possibility that location might be a more accurate indication of what language(s) the human user knows/prefers language than the

by Arnt 5y ago

This doesn't even consider the possibility that location might be a more accurate indication of what language(s) the human user knows/prefers language than the browser setting is. Which it may or may not be. But I'm shocked by the headline, "Why does Google get internationalization wrong?" that just presume that Google hasn't collected data on this. After all, Google is famous for data collected and data-driven decisions. Remember that "41 shades of blue" story?

0x006A 5y ago
Its more like they fucked it up with some AI driven A/B testing and think they are doing the right thing but actually its just all broken now. They used to have /ncr (no country redirect) - open that in incognito mode and you have to accept some TOS in a language based on some idea of where the IP is.
makeitdouble 5y ago
> After all, Google is famous for data collected and data-driven decisions. Remember that "41 shades of blue" story? Data (metrics really) isn’t the end all be all, and in particular the decisions resulting from the data is not bound to be good. As you say, Google is famous for data-driven decisions, and for instance android couldn’t become the top rated smartphone OS. Their shopping property couldn’t overcome competition despite unfair positioning, their social network couldn’t survive despite all the effort put in it. Looking at all their failures, why should we assume that here they made the best choice, when at an individual level we see it as deeply wrong ?
- Arnt 5y ago
  At an individual level, we should IMNSHO moderate our hubris and at least consider the possibility that other people are right, and that includes people at Google. Data isn't bound to be good, but it's not bound to be bad either. Posting "why Google is wrong" is (still IMNSHO) an overdose of hubris, and because of that hubris it's wrong even if Google happens to be wrong in the matter at hand.
  - scbrg 5y ago
    They are - objectively - wrong. There's a spec, and they're violating it. This gets even more absurd given that they most likely produce the user agent as well, so they can't really blame "it's too hard for users to configure the user agent". Put the effin' language selector in the toolbar if configured language doesn't match your wildly inaccurate guesses then.
    - toast0 5y ago
      > They are - objectively - wrong. There's a spec, and they're violating it. Not following a spec only implies they're objectively wrong if the spec is objectively correct. I don't think the Accept-Language spec is objectively correct; for me, it's not even subjectively correct. Following it or not is a choice, and neither is wrong.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    There’s a point that hasn’t been much raised in the other threads because of its obviousness: they’re the wildly dominant search engine, paying ungodly amounts of money to stay so, and forcing itself wherever it can (remember the lawsuits around the search bar in android…) For them to decide some portion of users are not worth the hassle and should have a degraded experience, because overall it serves Google better (revenue ? engagement ?) doesn’t make them ‘right’ in my book. Feels more like ‘assholes’. If your argument was that for a vast majority of user the current behavior might be better, so as a whole it is the “right” choice, this has a taste of trolley problem. Except there’s more than two paths here, and having settings that work properly would make everyone happy for instance. It’s not hubris to say that Google isn’t delivering on that part, making the overall situation “wrong”.

by Arnt 5y ago

0x006A 5y ago

Its more like they fucked it up with some AI driven A/B testing and think they are doing the right thing but actually its just all broken now. They used to have /ncr (no country redirect) - open that in incognito mode and you have to accept some TOS in a language based on some idea of where the IP is.

makeitdouble 5y ago

> After all, Google is famous for data collected and data-driven decisions. Remember that "41 shades of blue" story? Data (metrics really) isn’t the end all be all, and in particular the decisions resulting from the data is not bound to be good. As you say, Google is famous for data-driven decisions, and for instance android couldn’t become the top rated smartphone OS. Their shopping property couldn’t overcome competition despite unfair positioning, their social network couldn’t survive despite all the effort put in it. Looking at all their failures, why should we assume that here they made the best choice, when at an individual level we see it as deeply wrong ?

Arnt 5y ago
At an individual level, we should IMNSHO moderate our hubris and at least consider the possibility that other people are right, and that includes people at Google. Data isn't bound to be good, but it's not bound to be bad either. Posting "why Google is wrong" is (still IMNSHO) an overdose of hubris, and because of that hubris it's wrong even if Google happens to be wrong in the matter at hand.
- scbrg 5y ago
  They are - objectively - wrong. There's a spec, and they're violating it. This gets even more absurd given that they most likely produce the user agent as well, so they can't really blame "it's too hard for users to configure the user agent". Put the effin' language selector in the toolbar if configured language doesn't match your wildly inaccurate guesses then.
  - toast0 5y ago
    > They are - objectively - wrong. There's a spec, and they're violating it. Not following a spec only implies they're objectively wrong if the spec is objectively correct. I don't think the Accept-Language spec is objectively correct; for me, it's not even subjectively correct. Following it or not is a choice, and neither is wrong.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  There’s a point that hasn’t been much raised in the other threads because of its obviousness: they’re the wildly dominant search engine, paying ungodly amounts of money to stay so, and forcing itself wherever it can (remember the lawsuits around the search bar in android…) For them to decide some portion of users are not worth the hassle and should have a degraded experience, because overall it serves Google better (revenue ? engagement ?) doesn’t make them ‘right’ in my book. Feels more like ‘assholes’. If your argument was that for a vast majority of user the current behavior might be better, so as a whole it is the “right” choice, this has a taste of trolley problem. Except there’s more than two paths here, and having settings that work properly would make everyone happy for instance. It’s not hubris to say that Google isn’t delivering on that part, making the overall situation “wrong”.