A core concept here is that of ownership. People think they own their accounts and data. Stories like these, and unfortunately the law, make it clear that they don't own anything. I personally think it is false advertising of companies to even hint at ownership. Words like 'buy' shouldn't be allowed since it implies owning. They should only be allowed to say 'rent' or 'grant a limited license'.
Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
91–100 of 479 posts
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#92Every time a read a story like this, I feel an atavistic desire to self-host eveything. But I've had my Google account for 20 years now; the die is cast.
> But I've had my Google account for 20 years now
Just realize this: the longer you play this game, the higher your odds of getting banned. Once it hit me, I quickly decoupled from Google. It's like playing satoshi roulette for 0.5% gains. You keep winning until you get fully wiped.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#93Genuine question: if your Apple account is locked, and you're unable to create a new one, is your iPhone still usable?
Not really. I have an iPad without an Apple account and you can’t do much with it.
That said, I choose to use it this way and it does everything I need it to.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#94I'm glad that got resolved for Paris, but what the hell is a normal person supposed to do. Not every one has that kind of public reach to get a satisfactory resolution. First he had understand what happened technically, then he needed a public platform to tell people about it, then that writing needed to get reposted by others, than PR needed to get involved. Not something that's going to happen for a normal user. Ap…
> but what the hell is a normal person supposed to do. Not store their data in their iPhones. Period. I only store temporary data and photos I wouldn't care about.
Well, not only in their iPhones. And not in the same cloud storage provided by the phone. The only backups you really control are the ones in your possession, so you must keep offline local backups of anything really important to you.
The big marketing point of cloud storage was that you would not need to worry about owning and maintaining local storage, but they conveniently downplayed the fact that they could lock you out of your own files at their whim.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#95The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. Even if they have real humans to talk to, they simply follow a script. Those agents do not have the ability to investigate a situation or the power to use their discretion to take meaningful action. We should impose, by law, the following rules on all companies that offer accounts to their customers. 1. If they…
Usually I'm not a big fan of legislation, but in this case I completely agree. Companies unilaterally taking away anything you've paid for is effectively no different from theft, and ToS shouldn't be able to escape that. Or even if it's a free service but it's something you've built up value in -- a history of photos, messages, emails, etc. -- it's similarly effectively theft.
I agree there absolutely needs to be a form a habeus corpus here with arbitration to hear from both sides. And what's more, even when an account gets shut down, an export of all data must be provided, and a full refund of the purchase price of any digital licenses/credits still active. So even if a spammer takes over your account and Megacorp isn't convinced it wasn't you yourself that decided to spam, you still don't lose your data or money spent -- it's ultimately just a (very big) inconvenience.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've made it clear that you don't own your cloud library, so the only reasonable answer is to never pay for something with DRM you cannot remove (including things that require an online account for functionality you consider important), and treat services like Steam as a temporary convenience to download known good files that you then fix to remove any DRM. If you only treat these services as a download tool, thei…
I'm not an avid gamer, so maybe this is a naive question, but how do you know these things before you buy the game?
Assume everything is encrapified with “strong” DRM unless credibly demonstrated otherwise.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#97I'm glad that got resolved for Paris, but what the hell is a normal person supposed to do. Not every one has that kind of public reach to get a satisfactory resolution. First he had understand what happened technically, then he needed a public platform to tell people about it, then that writing needed to get reposted by others, than PR needed to get involved. Not something that's going to happen for a normal user. Ap…
> as they are both in the advertisement business Apple isn't. Just sayin'. They are trying to do it, but they aren't really anywhere near the scale of Google and Facebook. They make money ( lots of money) by selling high-margin hardware, and, to some extent, digital media, on that hardware. Currently, Apple is genuinely serious about preserving user privacy. I realize that can change, in the future, but it's the way…
Apple makes money on hardware and a 30% tax on developers. They might have some goodwill but are not making any money on privacy.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse. You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.
What I want to know is why does it always have to go straight from 0 to 100? There's seemingly no concept of proportion. For most online services, your account can be in one of two states: Totally good and "banned for life". There's no warning, no investigative period, no concept of scale (was the fraud $10 or $10,000?), no way to serve your time and come back if you actually were bad. It's just instant, silent BAN H…
When money is concerned, any kind of suspected money laundering / fraud investigation generally requires you to pause that account until the check is complete. What happens afterwards will be down to the results of the investigation.
It's also unlikely there are just those two states. For many services there will be a number of factors involved, but it's purposely opaque to make it harder to circumvent.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've made it clear that you don't own your cloud library, so the only reasonable answer is to never pay for something with DRM you cannot remove (including things that require an online account for functionality you consider important), and treat services like Steam as a temporary convenience to download known good files that you then fix to remove any DRM. If you only treat these services as a download tool, thei…
I'm not an avid gamer, so maybe this is a naive question, but how do you know these things before you buy the game?
You could buy from a provider that advertises non-use of DRM like GOG, or on Steam, it lists third party DRM, so you can know whether you have the tools to remove it (and whether you have the tools to remove Steam's DRM, or whether the game appears on a web list of games that don't use any DRM). You could also refund it if you can't verify you're able to successfully back it up and run the backup on a computer or user session without Steam installed. For multiplayer, if it's possible, you can find people discussing it on the web (maybe in pirate communities). Otherwise, just don't buy it.
Some recent stats indicated most gamers buy at most two games per year, so it's not a ton of work to ensure they have a working archive.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#100So never buy a gift card at a retail location, unless it’s digital. Preferably buy directly from the website of the company where th credit will be used.
But why would apple punish the secondary user of the card? That seems like the wrong person to punish.