[sellyme]

The exact opposite is true. These symbols require (but do not have) translation on every piece of clothing, because almost no-one understands what they mean, and it's not currently possible to type them in to Google to identify their meaning.

On the other hand, if the text was just in a language that I did not speak, I can either type this into a translation app myself, or use the automatic translation camera on my phone to identify them.

And sure, I can apparently now do that for those washing symbols too, which is nice... but why is that information being conveyed in a "language" that almost no-one speaks? I'd be just as confused if every item of clothing I purchased had washing instructions in Lojban.

I fully understand why an attempt at standardised symbols was made, being able to communicate that information more compactly would be useful, but it very clearly failed. They're not intuitive enough to learn without third-party resources, and a very very tiny fraction of the population is willing to put in the effort to do so. Just use text.

[Tepix]

Everyone who washes clothes more than once a month will learn the meaning of this symbols rather quickly.

They are like traffic lights.