“F-You Yahoo!” or Why Internet Regionalism Blows
There’s no reason why something that’s on the Internet in Kansas shouldn’t be available in Kingston, Khartoum or Kuala Lumpur. It’s not the ‘AmericaWeb’ or the ‘IranNet’ or the ‘ChinaTubes’. It’s the Internet. The whole point is that it should be available everywhere all the time. If you start to parse the Internet out according to any arbitrary set of rules, you rob it of its value, its very reason for being.
That said, imagine how much my ass was chapped this afternoon by this total dick move from Yahoo:
Mere minutes ago, I surf over to ‘my.yahoo.com’ where a specially placed Yahoo banner ad catches my eye. The ad is apparently promoting new skins/themes for the ‘My Yahoo’ page.
The first banner ad I saw said:
“The new backgrounds and layouts are awesome!” - S.
(Click the ad below to see the full-size image:)
Now while I’ll admit that I’m not completely satisfied with my current ‘My Yahoo’ background and layout, it generally takes more than one recommendation by a person who can’t even be bothered to include more than their first initial to convince me to click on a banner ad. I mean who does this ‘S.’ man/woman/dog think they are anyhow?
And that’s when I was hit by the follow up pitch:
“Blows the old one out of the water!” - N.
(Again, click the banner below to see the full-size image:)
I momentarily stumble over the “old one” comment. (I thought we were just talking about backgrounds and layouts… Weren’t there several, albeit mediocre, old ones?) But then I see that this is an entirely new recommendation. Holy shit. Both S. and N. have weighed in on this issue with full-bore exclamation-mark-laden enthusiasm.
What the hell, I decide. If it’s good enough for two of the most common letters in the English language, then it must be good enough for me…
Trembling with anticipatory glee, I click on the exciting yellow ‘Show Me’ button.
Here’s the full-page message that follows:
We appreciate your interest in the new My Yahoo! Beta. Unfortunately it is only open to My Yahoo! users in specific countries.
Um, then why…? But…? Really…? [Sighs, pushes back from computer. Goes to read a book.]
February 15th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Jay, I think they do it because it costs more to send stuff on international tubes.
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