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Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

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11–20 of 309 posts

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#11
No, you're not overreacting :) it sucks.

In theory, you agreed to all the ways they can screw you over when signing up. In reality of course no one can be reasonably expected to understand the full ramifications of multi-page terms of service.

I'm happy that EU is pushing this ownership argument forward. GDPR seemed unreasonable just a few years ago, now it's the new standard. I also don't think it's the final destination. We're moving towards more regulation, but that's expected in any mature industry.

However, this specific topic to me isn't as much about ownership as it's about redundancy and diversification.

Of course it's not a good idea to build your whole identity on some corporate identifier (@gmail.com, @icloud.com...). Of course your business income shouldn't be based on a single platform (e.g. youtube demonetization, facebook news). These problems could've been forseen even without the benefit of hindsight.

There's no such thing as absolute ownership anyway. Even your money or real estate belongs to you within the framework of modern banks and governments. Doesn't mean this ownership isn't meaningful, just that there are always limits and gotchas.

The most meaningful thing you can do is own as much of your digital surface area as you can. Having everything under your own domains will get the most bang for your buck. I don't bother with self-hosting, but for someone else that would be a must. Your mileage may vary.

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#12
Social sign in means all your eggs were in one basket. Google tries very hard to encourage you to do so.

You weren't wrong to do so, but the convenience/risk bet hasn't worked out for you. For most people it works out fine -- i.e. car driving risks.

I use a different email host, and only use user/pass logins, no social. It's fiddly, and you'll need a good password manager (not chrome) but that's the cost of not being exposed to this risk. Only you can decide if its worth it, very few people have the skills for it to even be an option.

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#16
In sensible jurisdictions, a tenant cannot be kicked out for non-payment of rent without a court order. That's right, a debtor who owes money to another cannot be booted without an independent government body approving it.

So it's not inherently wrong to say a user of a free service should have some rights. In some situations, it's not fair to pull the rug out under people.

I think that there will come a point where we need to have independent tribunals governing the behaviour of large web services. That point will probably be reached 5 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#17
post #2

No, you're not overreacting since it happened to you. On the other side, you are also overreacting. Take a walk. This being said, since you got a scare, maybe it's a good time you buy a 2nd domain from another registar and handle accordingly. PS: how does one find a good domain name?

> PS: how does one find a good domain name?

A time machine might come in handy.

(I can just see the cartoon now: guy invents time machine, friend asks if he’s going to stop Hitler, he says no, but to register a good domain name. (Never mind the practicalities of the ten-years-at-a-time limit.))

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#18
Apologies for going meta here:

Could I urge that posters follow the site convention of prefixing the title with with Ask HN, Tell HN, etc. for posts that don't link to an external source? There are currently two such posts in the top 30.

HN is primarily for discussing external articles, and I'd suggest that this post should have been submitted as such.

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#19
Buy a domain (I bought lastname.contact) and subscribe to Fastmail or a similar paid-for service. You can then use anything@lastname.contact and if your email service provider drops you, you can switch to another and not care about your contacts trying to reach you or updating the email address of all your online accounts. I couldn't be happier with the switch (I was using Protonmail before, and Gmail a long time ago). I still use my work g-apps account (only) for the Play Store on my Android phone.

Re: Ask HN: Should we own the free stuff we pay for?

#20
I do the same with my own domains and I'm similarly a Google slave. (huge shout-out to niftylettuce's https://forwardemail.net/)

That said, I'm planning to migrate to either self hosted or a paid service which is not run by algorithms and where customer supports exist (in that regards big tech is terrible: facebook, google, paypal = worthless customer support).

I completely agree with your premise though: Ideally everyone should have their own server providing a personal site and mail and maybe even hosting a decentralised social network.

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