Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
You are buying something from somebody that cannot legally sell it to you and you do it knowingly.
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What do I care?
Why should the seller care? Consider this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
If I buy a book from Canada and send it as a gift to my friend in Romania do they ask me where it is going? I don't know for sure but somehow I doubt it.
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I'm in the Netherlands. Officially, the only place to buy the Kindle is in the US Amazon store. The total price including shipment and import taxes will be around €160.
A Kindle in the UK store costs 109 pounds; 129 euro.
A Kindle in the German store costs 129 euro's.
I can buy virtually anything from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de, and they send it to me without problems... but I *CAN'T BUY A KINDLE*. Why the frack can I buy something at Amazon.de or UK that costs €500 and weighs 20 pounds and have it shipped to me, while I Kindle needs to be sent by Amazon US, for an extra €31?!
Therefore I ordered the Kindle with one of my friends, who lives in Germany. He bought it, then gave it to me. Saved me €31. Have I done something illegal? To make it even more funny. My friend and I live about 2 miles apart, on diferent sides of the border.
Later I heard that some big retailers in Germany also carry the Kindle in-store. I live less than 2 miles from one of those retailers. I could basically walk to that store and pick up a Kindle. I live in the Netherlands, so would it be "illegal" for me to do that? If so, nobody cares.
By the way, I did the same with my Nexus 4 phone. It got released in about three-quarters o Europe, and if I remember correctly, even in some second and third world countries; but it didn't get released in The Netherlands. Thereore, Dutch stores were importing the UK and DE Nexus 4 phones (€395 for customers), and selling them for €499, even up to €569.
I took a bus across the border to the big retailer that also happens to carry Kindles, and bought the Nexus there for €395. Why should I pay the Dutch store >= €100 extra?
I'll summarize. In today's world, geo-restrictions are completely useless and idiotic, especially with regard to digital products. In the 90's and before, retailers competed locally. Later, after the internet gained some prominence, they competed on a country level. Now, 20 years later, they compete globally.
I sometimes get things through eBay, paying €5 for a product, including shipping, while THE SAME product in the Netherlands will easily cost me €25 or even more. The only problem is that warranty is basically non-applicable, but on a €5 product, I don't really care.
And...
Whaddaya think of this?!
Quote of the beginning of that post:
Quote:
So, some time ago, received the following e-mail from Diesel.
At the very end of the month (right now, that is), it seems I've got some cash to spare, so I hop over to Diesel, chuck 14 (!) Forgotten Realms novels into my cart (starting with the first one from 1987), apply the promo code, and get my discount. (Over the first $50.) I've done it before, without problems. The cost would be around $2.70 or so per book.
Checkout.... and 12 of the 14 books get removed from my cart because of territorial restrictions. And I'm *not* going to buy these books at a price of €6.04 at Kobo, which is $7.85.
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In short, I get an email, touting that there are no geo-restrictions, and then 12 out of 14 books can't be bought because of geo-restrictions?!
After sending an e-mail to Diesel, their response basically was:
"Sorry for the inconvenience."
That cost them a fair bit of money.
I hate geo-restrictions, and if I want something, I *WILL* get it, one way or another. As I'm in the Netherands, even "finding" it on the internet could happen, if it's a digital product.
If we're talking about breaking geo-restrictions solely because of price: it depends. If the gains are big enough (like getting the Nexus 4 from Germany myself: if the shop can import it, I can too), then I will.