Marshall, I wonder about a reason for the prejudice against international developers. Same as in the US, there are companies that are able to pay the bills and those that are not because they have not figured out how to make money or raise funds. I know US and the rest of the world are two very different things when it comes to web development but I don't think it is fair to compare all international developers to students unable to pay any fees involved in running a business. - Svetlana Gladkova via FriendFeed MT Plugin

@svetlana is it any news for you that for sake of profit (and hence tax revenue for govt), US legislation is very protective _against_ international competition in an indirect, tough-to-prove-in-court way?.. - A.T.

@svetlana like non-acceptance of foreign credit cards, prohibition of certain business transactions (you can do them only IF you are US resident), mind you they also put their nose even abroad (yes, you may NOT charge US citizens from US-issued credit card for web gambling, EVEN if you run gambling web site somewhere nowhere) - A.T.

@svetlana I must say that both EU where I live, and Russian Federation have a lot of prohibitive legislation against foreigners to bring into country either, so... nothing new under moon ;) - A.T.

silpol: Yes, we both know that it may be difficult for any outsider to reach a new market simply because of various regulations involved (and they often work both ways) but I don't see any excuses for this remark in the post until we see Facebook prohibiting payments with foreign credit cards or only limits PayPal payments to US users. - Svetlana Gladkova

@svetlana one of classical excuses (considered as valid by US public) that business have no means to sue in court 3rd party app provider IF something goes wrong... - A.T.

silpol: I understand that and of course it may be a good reason for concerns but I doubt that means that international developers should be placed together with students. After all, US students are probably easy enough to sue for US businesses? - Svetlana Gladkova via twhirl

Marshall, you will be surprised to know how many international developers make their money in the US mostly so exchange rates are not applicable. Casual developers are casual developers everywhere and for a casual developer based in the US it will probably be equally difficult to come up with this amount. But there are tons of international developers that can hardly be described as casual. Should I begin bragging about Yandex again? I don't really know why the agreement is usually that internet and software businesses only exist and succeed in the US. - Svetlana Gladkova via FriendFeed MT Plugin