Well, you may have a hard time pronouncing the words, but that has nothing to do with understanding the language or with reading and writing in it. Spelling might actually be easier if you’re not distracted by inconsistencies compared to spoken language.
Also, “global” doesn’t have to mean “relevant and accessible to every single person in the world”. It could also be the opposite of “local”, for example, and describe the kind of content you can find, rather the kind of people.
Japan is a rather stubborn outlier, but even they still make an effort to learn. There's no getting around the fact that English is the language of science and commerce such that many people choose to learn it even if it's not their mother tongue. No need to get in a huff about it.
Of course English is the language for science and commerce, but that has nothing to do with it. Because you can't tell people "you can't speak your language here".
> you can't tell people "you can't speak your language here".
Yes you can, and that has been standard practice on the Internet since forever.
Things are much better now with Unicode etc., you will still run into problems with things like directionality and non-Latin scripts all the time.
If English is the default language and if English support is always the highest priority compared to every other language, that’s effectively the same as saying “you can’t speak your language here”.
And it works the other way around too. If you build something local and support only the languages used locally, you’re effectively saying to everyone else, “you can’t use your language here”.
> > you can't tell people "you can't speak your language here".
> Yes you can, and that has been standard practice on the Internet since forever.
Visst, klart du kan säga så, men andra kan lika väl strunta i det. Och tala om för dig att du beter dig som en översittare och ett arsel. Översittar-arslen har alltid funnits, det är inget nytt.
Again it is not the point. English is not my native language and I have no problem in using it... but if I am replying to someone I know their own language and would like to use that (with just them) I shouldn't be forced not to do that.