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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#31

Post by throw3838 »

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.

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

#32

Post by rocqua »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #21
const_burner wrote: post #15

> Do we own our identities? Do we own our phone numbers, emails, handles, PO boxes, addresses? I don’t think anything you listed a typical individual owns. Even street addresses change.

Not if you buy a house

Sure it can. Street-names can change, the numbering of houses in the street can change. At least, it can be changed by the municipality here in the Netherlands.

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

#33

Post by PretzelPirate »

The Decentralized Identity Foundation is attempting to build a standard so you can own your own identity that’s independent of any centralized provider: https://identity.foundation/

That helps you ‘own’ who you are, but doesn’t stop someone like Google from refusing to work with you in case they think you’re a spammer (though your DID can provide enough evidence that you aren’t).

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

#34

Post by montroser »

DocTomoe wrote: post #23
montroser wrote: post #14

> free stuff we pay for Did you actually pay for it? With money? Or was it free?

Either you think "paying with your data" is a valid argument, or you don't (but then the service needs to be free even without agreeing to the data stuff). Google can't have it both ways.

Can't they? Seems like they do have it both ways.

You can pay for Google Workspace with money, in which case you are the customer, and so you get customer service.

Or you can use the free version, in which case the advertiser is the customer and you are not.

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

#35

Post by Tepix »

bhy wrote: post #24
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #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…

By doing this you are trusting the .contact gTLD provider. Do you have idea how reliable are they? Would they reclaim your domain for some reason?

They have to follow the regulations of the gTLD. They can't just reclaim your domain at will.

For the .contact gTLD you will find them at https://donuts.domains/about/policies/ or over at ICANN.

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

#36

Post by doctoboggan »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #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 ev…

Do you have any delivery issues with forwardemail.net?

Is there any significant delay in receiving or sending?

I am currently a google apps user grandfathered in the free plan which is disappearing so I am looking for something new.

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

#37

Post by dlowe-net »

An important tip if you intend to send everything to gmail.

Do NOT send everything to gmail via forward. Every bit of spam you forward is going to count against your domain name. I had someone who did this on a community server and it wrecked our rating for a while.

Instead, have gmail pick up your email via pop3. This will avoid the "spam origin/relay" problem of forwarding.

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

#38

Post by 101008 »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #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 tried to do this long ago but I have two main fears:

1. Is it easy to set up the redirect from Gmail to the new account?

2. When I send email from new account (custom domain), how are you completely sure it is not going to be on spam? I send unsolicited emails to people in big corps (journalist asking for interviews/comments, not spammy :-)

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

#39

Post by bryans »

silon42 wrote: post #7

also, if you fail to renew your domain, it should not go to someone else tomorrow (or even in a year, ... decade, maybe)

It's incredible that companies are so eager to delete your data after a couple weeks. If someone gets sick at the end of the month -- let's say with a deadly virus that caused them to spend weeks in the hospital, maybe even being unconscious and intubated -- they shouldn't come home to a deleted domain name or web server, or need to reupload several terabytes to a backup provider, all over a ~$10 billing issue.

Grace periods for everything (online and off) used to be 3+ months. Now they're days. These billing policies are quite literally inhumane, as they entirely ignore the logistics of being human.

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

#40

Post by mns »

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…

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 or unlock if you misbehave.

Somehow I am not sure why, we as technical people, and I would even think that most of the people in these fields are also into fiction and sci-fi, we are taking only the worst things from novels and stories, instead of the good ones, VERY slowly transforming our society in an dystopian nightmare.

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