Talking in February 2025 about the "cloud computing" revolution is, at best, suited to one of the podcasts that deal with history, certainly not those that deal with innovation and technology. For millennials, and certainly for Gen Z, the cloud is something completely transparent, and chances are they won't understand at all how it is possible that an "internet" service is not accessible, available and unbiased, no matter where from. For their younger siblings, those who were "born" into ChatGPT and the like, even the words "search on Google" don't mean much, unless you want to describe something from the age of the dinosaurs. There is no doubt that various fields around the world have completely changed in recent years, geographic borders were removed, various barriers were moved, and for consumers, and even more so for business owners, the range of options of "who to work with and how" has become huge.
But despite everything, various consumer and market studies show that there are significant advantages for businesses that use providers local, and that over time they tend succeed more. This is not because the French, American or Polish provider is any worse than the local one – there are some of each – but thanks to the advantages of understanding the mentality, culture and language. especially when it comes to a provider of a critical part of the business's operations. Anyone who has tried to get urgent service after a business site went down or a critical system was blocked, and found themselves talking to a chatbot (however advanced) or to a service rep who feels like a bot, knows exactly what this is about. Try explaining to a service rep that you cannot verify yourself by email because your domain is down, and you will understand how frustrating the situation can be. It is not that the support center in Warsaw or Bangalore does not understand the severe consequences of shutting down a customer's business, but the culture there is different, and they do not always understand the urgent needs and the mentality of Israeli businesses. A quality local provider, on the other hand, who knows the local culture and mentality, understands the importance of an immediate and precise solution, with clear and accessible communication in your language.
But it's not only about "service"; before rushing to give up on a provider who thinks in our "language", it's worth taking other things into account. Technological revolutions and the removal of geographic and language barriers have undoubtedly widened the range of options and made doing business easier, but the world is far from friendly and warm. Wars, conflicts and hatreds are simmering at every moment, in every region, and it turns out that our modest business, which has nothing at all to do with politics, can unexpectedly become a "target". And no, we don't mean cyberattacks in the classic sense against Israeli sites and businesses (a phenomenon we have written about extensively), but "attacks" of a different kind, no less destructive:|
The boycott of Israeli businesses and of vendors that provide services to Israeli businesses has become a familiar phenomenon, and organizations such as BDS are the tip of the iceberg. While cases where things are done openly, such as the attempts by Google and Amazon employees to sabotage Project Nimbus (an infrastructure project built by those same companies for the Israeli government), can be dealt with, the real problem is that it is usually done in a supposedly "innocent" and "accidental" way; for example, a "technical glitch" that for some reason harms the systems that support Israeli websites. The management level in those bodies is not necessarily involved, and it turns out there are initiatives by lower-level staff with a matching ideology (like those "prestigious" campus demonstrators from Europe and the United States, who already on October 8, 2023 raised flags against Israel).
Another way that Israeli site owners tell about is "targeted elimination", through complaints submitted to hosting providers about "inappropriate" content or "rights violations", even when it is clear on its face that the claims have no basis, out of an understanding that providers, even ones that don't share a common ideology, would rather not take the risk and not upset anyone. Customers also describe unexplained red tape, "extremely slow" technical support and other strange incidents.
Bottom line, no matter how each of us feels about concepts like "patriotism" or "blue and white", even for completely "selfish" commercial reasons, it is recommended to think very carefully about who the provider is that you choose to work with, and it is recommended at the very least to invest a few hours in background checks and recommendations about their availability and accessibility to you, including in less pleasant times.
*This article is dedicated by uPress, the leading hosting brand for WordPress sites, to Israeli civil society.
uPress promotes and supports various initiatives to strengthen civil resilience and the Israeli internet community.
