Regional Nonsense

In the beginning there were NTSC and PAL. Two incompatible TV systems, one originated in the USA, the other in Europe. Handling the differences between the two was not a big problem for consumers, as usually they were physically buying or renting compatible content at physical stores in areas where they intended to consume that content. VCRs were not portable and Amazon did not exist. It seemed things got simplified with the introduction of the unified standard of DVDs but then it occurred the worldwide compatibility of content was a bad thing. So we were immediately back to the complicated state with the introduction of regions and region codes. And again content (a disc) purchased in America could not be played in Europe (and vice versa of course).

In today's global village the idea of not compatible content is present even stronger.

I have a Kindle. Or two - to be precise. A friend of mine who lives on the other side of the Atlantic recommended me a book. I took my Kindle, entered the title and the Amazon search returned no results. Strange... I went over to my computer, fired the Amazon.com web page and searched the Kindle store for the book. Still nothing. So I searched the traditional Amazon bookstore. There it was. A paperback and a Kindle edition. But strangely the Kindle edition had no price. But I clicked it and got the message saying the title was not available in Europe. Hey. Hold on a minute. So I can buy the paperback and have it physically shipped to Europe. And I cannot buy the electronic version. Does this make sense?

I started digesting the message. Not available in your region: Europe. What does "my region" mean? Is it the billing address of my credit card? Or the IP address of my Internet service provider? Or the country code of the mobile network the Kindle is logged on to? What will happen when I get on a plane and land in six hours on the other side of Atlantic? Or use my second credit card? This does not make sense...

I clicked the link on the first message and a second popup message opened suggesting changing the region of my Kindle.


I went to the Kindle management page and entered my US address and... bingo... with the OneClick I was able to purchase the book and it landed on my Kindle within 15 seconds. OK I promise I will not start reading it until the plane I am on leaves the European air space...