6 ms·

Remember EU classified some companies as gatekeepers. Call them gatekeepers, monopolies, whatever - some companies are like "essential workers". They need to be

Remember EU classified some companies as gatekeepers. Call them gatekeepers, monopolies, whatever - some companies are like "essential workers". They need to be available as much as essential workers were needed during covid. Which means at some point we need regulation that if you are an essential company, if you are a gatekeeper, you need to have a physical grievance office in your county if not the city, or you need to have a call center to resolve such issues. Might as well create some (local) jobs while we are solving this so I would prefer a local office.

MichaelRo 6mo ago
Question is weather the guy who got his account banned and lost access to all his data, was paying Google for cloud / hosting services or not. If it was on the free plan then all bets are off. If he was paying for a service, I believe there is enough case for a lawsuit where Google pays through their teeth for basically taking the client's data hostage. At some point I'll move my hosted services to one or more companies, which for a cost - essential point if you want legal protection - offer me their services. And if shit happens, I get my data back. And there is someone, a physical person that I can call when shit happens and they can't hide behind AI and automated replies. Otherwise I have real leverage to sue their ass and settle for mucho dinero so they learn to behave. Seems to me Google is not such a "service provider" company, so it's naive to let them hold your data, with zero legal protection if they decide to take it hostage.
Wicher 6mo ago
Totally. Ideally it'd go like this: Offer services for free (eg cross-subsidized by another business arm) in order to carve out a gigantic kingdom with millions of users, smothering any competition (only few use an indie email provider when there's "free" email, only few try to make a stand not using Whatsapp in whatsapp-saturated locales), and... Congratulations, now you've become too big too fail! And now you'll be treated as such. You're a critical part of society's functioning, and are to be regulated as such. Whether by accident, whether intentionally, whether it's because you're simply awesomely innovative or maybe you just massively cross-subsidized from another business branch, is irrelevant. Once market capture has reached a certain point, yes, you need a physical grievance office, with state-backed arbitration/escalation. For instance. Maybe you also can't just change the TOS anymore just like that, making people choose between coordinating a hasty move of the families' 4 TB of photos to... ? and being slowly boiled while $BIGBOY AI-trains on the family photos. As a big boy, don't like this kind of regulation? Just shrink by selling off some business arms. Or stop hooking people by giving out "free" stuff. Or maybe don't base your growth strategy on gatekeepership and moats. I surmise that big rules for big boys (while not burdening small players, thus, differential legislation) will actually massively help competition and innovation. But even if it doesn't — government, by the people, for the people, should get the final say in how we let citizens be treated. People with beating hearts over emotionless corps, always.
pllbnk 6mo ago
There's not enough computer literacy among population and this 'gatekeeper' role is made up. I also have a Google account which was my main and only one for a very long time (starting from when the Gmail accounts were invite-only and were actually considered really cool) but over time I have come up with Plan A, Plan B and Plan C (which is where Google has been relegated to). I couldn't care less if my Google account somehow got locked. Comparing a service which has countless alternatives to essential workers is meaningless.

MichaelRo 6mo ago

Question is weather the guy who got his account banned and lost access to all his data, was paying Google for cloud / hosting services or not. If it was on the free plan then all bets are off. If he was paying for a service, I believe there is enough case for a lawsuit where Google pays through their teeth for basically taking the client's data hostage. At some point I'll move my hosted services to one or more companies, which for a cost - essential point if you want legal protection - offer me their services. And if shit happens, I get my data back. And there is someone, a physical person that I can call when shit happens and they can't hide behind AI and automated replies. Otherwise I have real leverage to sue their ass and settle for mucho dinero so they learn to behave. Seems to me Google is not such a "service provider" company, so it's naive to let them hold your data, with zero legal protection if they decide to take it hostage.

Wicher 6mo ago

Totally. Ideally it'd go like this: Offer services for free (eg cross-subsidized by another business arm) in order to carve out a gigantic kingdom with millions of users, smothering any competition (only few use an indie email provider when there's "free" email, only few try to make a stand not using Whatsapp in whatsapp-saturated locales), and... Congratulations, now you've become too big too fail! And now you'll be treated as such. You're a critical part of society's functioning, and are to be regulated as such. Whether by accident, whether intentionally, whether it's because you're simply awesomely innovative or maybe you just massively cross-subsidized from another business branch, is irrelevant. Once market capture has reached a certain point, yes, you need a physical grievance office, with state-backed arbitration/escalation. For instance. Maybe you also can't just change the TOS anymore just like that, making people choose between coordinating a hasty move of the families' 4 TB of photos to... ? and being slowly boiled while $BIGBOY AI-trains on the family photos. As a big boy, don't like this kind of regulation? Just shrink by selling off some business arms. Or stop hooking people by giving out "free" stuff. Or maybe don't base your growth strategy on gatekeepership and moats. I surmise that big rules for big boys (while not burdening small players, thus, differential legislation) will actually massively help competition and innovation. But even if it doesn't — government, by the people, for the people, should get the final say in how we let citizens be treated. People with beating hearts over emotionless corps, always.

pllbnk 6mo ago

There's not enough computer literacy among population and this 'gatekeeper' role is made up. I also have a Google account which was my main and only one for a very long time (starting from when the Gmail accounts were invite-only and were actually considered really cool) but over time I have come up with Plan A, Plan B and Plan C (which is where Google has been relegated to). I couldn't care less if my Google account somehow got locked. Comparing a service which has countless alternatives to essential workers is meaningless.