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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?

#281

Post by magicjosh »

Grustaf wrote: post #244
gbasin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be That Guy, since I'm not a shill, but "Bitcoin solves this" — not really today, except for pure cryptocurrency, but I can imagine a future where ownership of our access to these services is controlled by public blockchains ...

Why would that solve anything? Google could still cancel my gmail if I say something politically incorrect, regardless of their database technology. It's not like making my email public would change anything, they are not reluctant to cancel people just because others can see it. If anything, that makes the cancellation all the more effective.

If your email were hosted on a public blockchain, Google could not kick you off.

- Decentralized file hosting for all the emails using IPFS instead of Google's servers

- Decentralized login using ENS / Ethereum Name Service instead of Google's login

- a UI on top of your data, plus an outbound server for relaying to/from non-blockchain email accounts

Overall, you end up with portable data thanks to IPFS, and a login through ENS to whatever UI you want to use/pay for.

This seems like a win to me. Haven't seen anything yet that pulls this together but the pieces are there. Maybe someone here wants to prototype it.

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

#282

Post by magicjosh »

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…

I like how you put this. Yes, it does seem like our ownership of digital services is tenuous, unlike owning a knife or a car. I could wake up tomorrow and conceivably be locked out of my Twitter, Gmail, Facebook accounts forever.

Perhaps in the new era of tech we'll have better data portability and ownership. Sure, maybe Google can kick me off but they should still let me export all my data.

See my reply below about public blockchains.

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

#283

Post by Berniek »

How long has the debate been going about personal privacy? Do you think it didn't apply to business or corporate entities? Ensuring you are in full control of your passwords was already a thing, but logic suggests being in control of your identity (your login identity) is every bit as important. The reason websites want to use your email address as a logon is they can on sell it.They can aggregate all your data under the username and cross link it. You got it for free. Those services you paid for you actually still have, you just can't access them because you used a free service to handle the security. (google, Facebook, twitter handled the verifying it was you and they do it for free - it just cost you your privacy) Sadly, you actually got exactly what you paid for security wise. If you had used your phone number as a logon (don't laugh google is doing that too) then all your privacy is out the window because even transitory email accounts can be cross link and you are now fully identifiable. No? Well how often have you changed phone numbers? When you start again, get at least 4 email addresses. 1 private 2 banking/financial 3 all the other stuff 4 business (perhaps another one for business don't care) Manage them yourself so you can delete or add as the spam/junk overwhelms.

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

#286

Post by bradknowles »

muzani wrote: post #285
bradknowles wrote: post #284

Lesson 1: don’t build your mansion on someone else’s property. Lesson 2: don’t use gmail. At least, don’t use it for anything you actually care about.

What is a good email provider, paid or not?

One that you pay for your services, and where you’ve done your due diligence and confirmed that they are actually a good actor and responsible provider.

Speaking only for myself, I have personally hosted my vanity domains that I have owned since 1995 with the folks at Heller Information Systems, who own the his.com and hers.com domains.

During that time, I was also the Sr. Internet Mail Administrator at AOL, and the co-author of the SAGE booklet on “Internet Postmaster: Duties and Responsibilities”. I know how hard it is to run an e-mail system properly, and how large of a team it takes to do the job right. And I have steadfastly refused to try to do that job on my own for myself. The folks at HIS do a better job than I could do on my own for myself.

Since 2003, I have also helped run the mail systems for python.org and NTP.org. That work has just solidified my views that running a mail server is a highly complex and burdensome task, which is why I drafted in the authors of “The Book of Postfix” to help run the mail systems for python.org. They have done a fantastic job, far better than I could have done on my own, and reinforced once again in my mind how much effort is required.

So, do your homework. Check out the long-term reputation of the company, and see how much of that might be due to a single person who is heroically trying to balance the entire world on their shoulders, versus those who are part of a large team.

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

#287

Post by theshrike79 »

EnKopVand wrote: post #77

Google is simply not a very reliable business partner for tech. I have a decade worth of experience in the Danish public sector, where I’ve had plenty of great experiences with both Amazon and Microsoft. I know that a lot of people would prefer things to be open source, but part of what you pay for in an Enterprise Organisation is availability of support. When AWS first entered the European market, most of what they…

I can confirm the AWS support responsiveness.

I've worked both with small clients (under $1k AWS spend) and big ones (monthly billing on the order of my yearly salary) and both got pretty much equal response times from their (paid) support.

The BigCo of course had a dedicated direct contact on company Slack for any issues and zoom calls with AWS staff before big launches - but anyone can get it if they spend money.

Google on the other hand seems to be completely opaque. The front page of HN seems to be the best way to get stuff resolved.

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

#288

Post by sundarurfriend »

grishka wrote: post #249
estaseuropano wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use social login at all when you can use email instead?

On services where sessions have a lifetime for some stupid reason, entering your email and password gets really boring really fast. Even more if they use a username instead of an email. Even more if they require you to change passwords periodically. Much easier to just click a button.

Password managers (with auto-type) are a great solution for that.

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

#289

Post by nudpiedo »

playpause wrote: post #58
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #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.

I'm curious, what problem does it create for you, clicking a link you momentarily thought was to an external site before realising it's actually a discussion on this site? Honest question, you might have a good answer, I'm not trying to be rhetorical.

I would prefer to know it AOT as I find it much more insightful, and even more likely to click on the link.

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

#290

Post by raxxorrax »

phkahler wrote: post #151
bayindirh wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that also creates security risks especially relating to information exposure. The ID provider will always know which services you use, how often you perform logins etc.

A secured password manager is the superior option, especially since you would not compromise every service in case your password is known by third parties.

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