3 ms·

Whoa, I dind't know about the 21 countries thing. What are they smoking, indeed.

• yitchelle 13y ago
  Region locking is one of the most evil things in our industry. Nothing more to say..
  • csense 13y ago
    It's a great idea from the point of view of the seller. If you have people who have money and frequently travel internationally, you can force them to buy two (or more!) copies of every one of your products they use. You can also do price discrimination. Those rich guys in the US and Japan can afford $100, so you'll charge them that much. The up-and-comers in China might be able to do $50, so that's the price for them. Africa? Since $20 is like a month's wages for a whole village or something, that's probably all you can get out of them, and with those prices you're only making three fiddy after you cover the per-unit support costs for that always-online thingy. But you really need that so you can do geolocation, and can keep all the annoying entrepreneurs on HN from buying a million African copies when they're on safari, then eating your lunch by reselling them to the US and China for $30. This is assuming customers want the product badly enough that they're willing to put up with this garbage. Which they generally do -- most people don't travel internationally and aren't affected; furthermore, software is not a commodity and there may not be completely interchangeable alternatives so their only choices are to put up with it or make do without.