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A comment on Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world?. Parent comment

Re:Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world? by dgabriel on Tuesday March 11, 2008 @12:50PM (#134373)
There are also liability issues. This service is offered to US citizens only, possibly because their billing practices don't conform to laws of other nations. Localization of legal issues is costly and time consuming. If you examine the member agreement linked on that page, you see the following:

3. QUALIFICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP

To use the AOL Services, you must be a U.S. resident and legally able to enter into contracts. AOL reserves the right to limit you to one free trial or promotion of a paid subscription plan that cannot be combined with other offers.

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Re:Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world? by mixmax on Tuesday March 11, 2008 @12:57PM (#134384)
Well if startups from small European countries can deal with that, the I'm sure large American companies can as well. If they choose to do so of course.
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Re:Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world? by dgabriel on Tuesday March 11, 2008 @01:04PM (#134402)
They can, for sure, and many of them do (just not all of them). It's a decision based on the cost of legal vs. the income benefit of providing services to the international market.

AOL has apparently decided the US is its target market. You can get better free web mail from other sites, anyway. :)

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Re:Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world? by mixmax on Tuesday March 11, 2008 @02:26PM (#134493)
he he, yes absolutely...

My point is not to downgrade American companies, it's more that I'm perplexed why some of them are content with such a small share of the global market. If an European startup can do it, then it seems like it is not an issue of it being too hard or too expensive.

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Re:Ask YC: Are Americans forgetting the rest of the world? by tim2 on Tuesday March 11, 2008 @01:18PM (#134416)
Everyone wants to sue the billion dollar company, no one will bother suing the broke, gone-tomorrow startup.
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