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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

If I went back 25 years or so and showed my younger self the Internet of today, what would probably surprise me the most is how stubbornly we've clinged to political borders and the extent to which we've tried to graft them onto a mostly border-less computer network. I was pretty convinced back then that the internet would help to blur the lines between States, but it appears that the opposite has happened.

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It really does suck being in the US sometimes too. English is my first language, but I also speak German and it's really hard to keep that language fresh in my mind. I use a VPN to access German Netflix, because there are no German language shows on the US Netflix. I have a hard time trying to buy German books because Amazon US doesn't stock them and Amazon.de, even when accessed over a German VPN, won't sell them to me with a US credit card. And if I buy a German DVD, I can't play it on my US DVD player.

I thought the Internet would fix it but instead it just lets me know all of the things I should have access to but don't. It's not like I can pop over to Germany for a few hours and pick up ein Roman. And worst of all, The Pirate Bay doesn't have 99% of anything I'm looking for in German. So I literally have zero access, legally or illegally.

Very surprised that you can't buy stuff with your US card. I do just that; i.e. I'm in Germany, and I buy things off of Amazon.de with my US card.

That's weird. When I try, it says "I think you're trying to buy from Amazon.com" and redirects me away from the German site.

edit - Yeah I just tried and I get this message:

Wir konnten Ihren Einkauf nicht abschließen. Ihr Kindle-Konto ist auf Amazon.com angemeldet. Kindle-Titel, die für Ihr Land verfügbar sind, erhalten Sie auf Amazon.com.

Basically saying "your account is linked to Amazon.com, to see titles available in your country go to Amazon.com".

I actually signed up for a brand new account on Amazon.de, and when I go to the Kindle version of a book I want, instead of a purchase button, I get this message, which I understand the translation but I'm not sure what they're trying to communicate to me.

Kindle-Titel sind für Kunden in DE unter Amazon.de verfügbar. Setzen Sie Ihren Einkauf im Kindle-Shop von Amazon.de fort.

Clicking the "im Kindle-Shop von Amazon.de fort" link redirects me to the same page with the same message.

Kindle; so e-books right? That's digital content, and that suffers from the same problem (and silly restrictions) Netflix is having. Real — sorry — physical books might work.

That's a fair point. Ugh I don't want to have to wait for overseas shipping.

You can switch your country settings from Amazon US to Amazon DE and back with no ill effects. I did it several times. You get to keep all Kindle books you bought in both countries. Just follow the link at Amazon DE where the buy button should be and instead it says "Have you moved recently? You may change your country on the Manage Your Content and Devices page."

> I was pretty convinced back then that the internet would help to blur the lines between States, but it appears that the opposite has happened.

I'll disagree. The idea that we can use things like proxies shows how the internet has little regard for our ideologies. On top of that, people aren't going to stop just because Netflix makes it harder, they are just going to pirate instead.

So officially, yes, the internet hasn't blurred the lines. In reality, Internet-users are becoming quite disenfranchised with the entire "State" idea, and frankly just wander around it.

And this, including the long debate about piracy in a parallel thread, is an example of those worldviews in conflict.

It's happening. Myself, and a lot of other people I know, don't feel tied to the nation states at all. Where many are still thinking about themselves in terms of their countries, we consider ourselves citizens of Earth and members of human race first, and the nationality is something I'd call a cultural quirk local to our geography. We speak different languages, but we see it in the same way as different hair colors. Just funny, but ultimately irrelevant quirks.

We had that utopia for a while, but now it seems that we need to fight to preserve it. IMO, pushing regional borders onto the Internet is a step backwards for humanity.

I was just thinking about that earlier... The internet used to be so free and open and now, when people realized they could squeeze even more money out of it, it's now become this sanitized, over-controlled network instead of the "Library of Alexandria" that it used to be. :(

I understand what you're trying to say, but you are stretching this a little too much. Netflix is not an example of open internet - wikipedia is - and sure as hell is nothing like the Library of Alexandria!!!

It's a bit of a stretch ... but now that it's mentioned I bet that the library of Alexandia did have a hell of a lot of folk tales and fiction from different cultures.

I wasn't specifically mentioning Netflix as the bastion of openness. I was just commenting how something like YouTube, for example, is a lot less useful now that there's tons of money to be made from it. How many times have you read an article or gone to a link where the video is now missing because it was taken down due to some kind of weird request. Twitter was awesome until everyone decided to start using it as a promotional tool instead of a social platform. That was more what I was going after...

Yeah, funny how I'm allowed to order a DVD from US or Germany, while at the same time I'm forbidden from paying to watch that show from a German or US streaming service just because I live a bit to the south.

Sorry, but there's profit to be had.

This is actually what surprises me - what profit is there to be had if they don't allow me to give them euros? :)

The licensing deals that can be made with local broadcasters. They are making profits, just not from you. Supposedly if you wanted to watch it legally you would pay for whatever service is allowed to legally broadcast the content to you.

For reference I believe this to be stupid, but that's where this fabled profit lies.

The reason for this is the technical difference between streaming and playing a DVD. Transporting a DVD isn't copyright infringement. Streaming always requires a license because it involves making a copy.

Netflix actually built itself on the fact that you can send DVDs wherever you want.

> Streaming always requires a license because it involves making a copy.

This does not apply in Germany.

Copies that exist purely in cache, or, copies, that stop working after some time, are always legal, and you need no license for that.

It’s why streaming music from a chinese website is legal.

You can order a DVD from Germany, but it'll be region-locked when you try to play it in a US DVD player.

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