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

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

#151

Post by phkahler »

bayindirh wrote: post #124
moreira wrote: post #51

> lost access to paid services that I had set up with social login I signed up to Quora with my Facebook account, back in the day. Deleted Facebook in 2013 and lost access to my Quora account, with no possible way to recover it. I haven't used a social login since. In my case, it was fairly harmless, but it made me realise how dangerous social login is. Every time there's a signup, I look for "signup with email". It'…

Social logins only carry your information and a token, and you can enter to your profile and add a password too (99% of the time). So, you can use social login (OpenID Connect in reailty), as an automated form filler and add your password, so your account will be effectively won't depend on that provider anymore. I use a lot of services like that.

>> Social logins only carry your information and a token, and you can enter to your profile and add a password too (99% of the time).

I think the whole point is not having to create yet another password.

One solution to all of this is to have some kind of durable identity verification that the user controls and can use everywhere. There are serious challenges with that of course, which is why we don't have it yet.

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

#152

Post by grishka »

throw3838 wrote: post #31
YPPH wrote: post #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…

And as always it will backfire on users! Now it is impossible to find unlimited rentals, every contract has yearly extensions! In some countries landlords even rotate tenants every two years, else they would get extra rights from long stay.

In Russia literally everyone does 11-month rental contracts that are extended every 11 months because a year or more means the tenant would get more rights and they would also need to pay taxes.

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

#153

Post by Grustaf »

htrp wrote: post #132
Grustaf wrote: post #30

When you put it this way, it's really quite remarkable how tenuous our hold is on even paid for digital services. There is really nothing you could do with a car to prompt the car maker to take it from you. And the state will only take it if you break the law in particularly dangerous ways. When it comes to other possessions it's even harder for anyone to take them away from you. If I take a kitchen knife and stab so…

This is going to be one of those situations where we will have legislation passed, especially if our digital identities are tied to 3rd party providers. Alternatively, the government will just take over basic id services (think first.last@yourcountry).

We already have state run (more or less) digital ids in both Sweden and Denmark. I don't know if anyone has been denied for ideological reasons though.

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

#154

Post by Grustaf »

c-linkage wrote: post #86
mns wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can't really download a car, can you? :) Joke aside, I think we are actually going in the opposite direction. Looking at the way Tesla wants/already does keep a score of your driving, maybe self driving cars in the distant future, I would predict that we are going in the wrong direction when certain people and groups will want cars to drive away from you back to their home base or your car to refuse to start…

This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition. Since this is Hacker News I'm sure there will be some who can say the two are compatible, but it will only appear that way to the wealthy and the elites -- the rest of us will gain none of the benefits and will be seen solely as "customers" or "partners" from which revenue must be ex…

> This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition.

Not quite. Few businesses have ever been focused on improving the human condition. The new thing is their ability to control our lives, and our acceptance of that, both in terms of laws and our quiet consent.

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

#155

Post by foxfluff »

ekanes wrote: post #80
foxfluff wrote: post #43

> Should we own the free stuff we pay for? We should own our own stuff. Your email is your own data. No company should have the right to arbitrarily destroy or block your access to your data. Whether that service is free or paid for is irrelevant; offering a service for free isn't a license to rob and destroy. I've argued this point multiple times (e.g [0]). Business who host your data should treat your data as your…

I’ve never heard of someone being their own registrar. Was this hard to set up?

It was about five minutes of filling a form with the national authority.

There are some responsibilities that you get along with it (e.g. you're supposed to do risk assessment and document your approach to risks and security, etc.) but you don't actually have to deliver those documents unless they ask for it. They may also require you to respond to some questionnaires and such (I've received only one questionnaire over the years; they were conducting a study about how registrars verify the identity of their customers). Obviously these are primarily intended for commercial operators who have responsibility for customers' domains, and my risk assessment offering domains for myself is going to look pretty simple so I haven't actually written anything down. Will do if/when requested.

Excerpt from my whois records:

    Holder
    
    holder.............: Private person
    
    Registrar
    
    registrar..........: Private person
(It used to have my name along with other info in the registrar field, but this thankfully changed following GDPR)

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

#156

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

tsatsawayy wrote: post #129
elif wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are also digital service platforms which can and do take away things. I am currently playing a safety score minigame to unlock enhanced driving features. If I pay $2000 my software will enable my minivan to have a 0-60 of a Ferrari. This is all premised upon a connectivity package I'm obligated to pay for but have been gifted for a year by the manufacturer. To put it more bluntly, my eyeballs are watched by AI t…

Most cars do not do this. Teslas are famous for their DRM, restrictive connectivity, and shady upsells. Those will show up in the "cons" column of any honest review. A normal car in 2022 will not constantly surveil you. No critical functionality is tied to an online account in any non-Tesla mass-produced car that I am aware of.

Neither of these points are true. Other manufacturers like Toyota are getting into the "features as a service" game with things like keyless entry.

On the surveillance point, I worked for an auto software company that partnered with a big auto manufacturer on a feature. We were granted access to an API that could geolocate any vehicle made by this company in real-time given its VIN. I volunteered my car's VIN to test with (I drove the same make as the company we partnered with) and confirmed that the API returned real-time location data on my 2019 vehicle. If you own a car that was built in the last 10 years, you are more than likely emitting your location to an internal service maintained by the manufacturer.

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

#157

Post by adolph »

pjc50 wrote: post #47
Grustaf wrote: post #30

When you put it this way, it's really quite remarkable how tenuous our hold is on even paid for digital services. There is really nothing you could do with a car to prompt the car maker to take it from you. And the state will only take it if you break the law in particularly dangerous ways. When it comes to other possessions it's even harder for anyone to take them away from you. If I take a kitchen knife and stab so…

> even something as crucial as a banking service Interestingly the problem of people excluded from the banking system has been addressed by statutory regulation in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-account... ; see also discussion at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfi... which covers the question of people with inadequate ID. Getting your email account wrongly bann…

> people excluded from the banking system has been addressed by statutory regulation

I wonder if the effort behind this is a Baptist and Bootleggers moment. Surely some maybe most want to solve something that they see as a societal problem, others see opportunity a la payday lenders, and others see an opportunity for social control. Maybe the people who see not-banking as a social problem also want to use the end result to "nudge" participants in the right direction.

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

#158

Post by coliveira »

nudpiedo wrote: post #115
elif wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are also digital service platforms which can and do take away things. I am currently playing a safety score minigame to unlock enhanced driving features. If I pay $2000 my software will enable my minivan to have a 0-60 of a Ferrari. This is all premised upon a connectivity package I'm obligated to pay for but have been gifted for a year by the manufacturer. To put it more bluntly, my eyeballs are watched by AI t…

What car is it? In what country did you purchase it? To me that sounds beyond reality…

It starts with a T.

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

#160

Post by jtbayly »

bayindirh wrote: post #124
moreira wrote: post #51

> lost access to paid services that I had set up with social login I signed up to Quora with my Facebook account, back in the day. Deleted Facebook in 2013 and lost access to my Quora account, with no possible way to recover it. I haven't used a social login since. In my case, it was fairly harmless, but it made me realise how dangerous social login is. Every time there's a signup, I look for "signup with email". It'…

Social logins only carry your information and a token, and you can enter to your profile and add a password too (99% of the time). So, you can use social login (OpenID Connect in reailty), as an automated form filler and add your password, so your account will be effectively won't depend on that provider anymore. I use a lot of services like that.

Finding the place to enter and save and confirm a password sounds a lot harder than just putting in my first name, last name, email and a password in the first place.
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