I&#x27;ll echo that gripe.  Amazon have hobbled their ecosystem by the bizarre design decision of mandatory configuration by US zip code.  This effectively excludes all non-American users, and makes the barriers for overseas developers prohibitively high.<p>Since I am in Australia, my Echo is good only for parlour tricks and streaming audio: without an accurate time and place, even simple things like checking weather are impossible.  Forget about booking a cab, or home automation.  So I have not tried to develop for the platform, because I do not develop things I cannot test.<p>Perhaps Amazon were afraid of diluting their product focus.  But failure to think globally means your product cannot be a world leader.