Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#651

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #556

jquery wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? When I buy a steam game, the big green button says “purchase”, not “receive a temporarily revocable right to access”. It’s the digital age. My digital items are my possessions. This dichotomy in your head between the “real” and the “digital” doesn’t exist for the younger generation. There are few alternatives to these large tech companies. As I’ve gotten older I’ve wisened up and I buy DRM-free digital goods…

The big green button lies. They are trying to bend the language to mean things that it legally doesn't mean. Just as they call unauthorized distribution of content "piracy" or "theft" (it's neither), they call a temporary revokable permission to access their content "purchase". And if you click that button, you agree with it knowingly. When it bites you in the nether regions, they'll remind you that was exactly what…

[deleted]

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#652

Post by jquery » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #556

jquery wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? When I buy a steam game, the big green button says “purchase”, not “receive a temporarily revocable right to access”. It’s the digital age. My digital items are my possessions. This dichotomy in your head between the “real” and the “digital” doesn’t exist for the younger generation. There are few alternatives to these large tech companies. As I’ve gotten older I’ve wisened up and I buy DRM-free digital goods…

The big green button lies. They are trying to bend the language to mean things that it legally doesn't mean. Just as they call unauthorized distribution of content "piracy" or "theft" (it's neither), they call a temporary revokable permission to access their content "purchase". And if you click that button, you agree with it knowingly. When it bites you in the nether regions, they'll remind you that was exactly what…

> if you don't control it, you haven't bought it.

I understand this well enough to at least keep offline backups of my paid content libraries (because I’m older and can afford the expense). Yeah, because of DRM it may be troublesome to access the content if my account was banned… but it gives me more ground to stand on (with our current unjust laws, both in court and in the court of public opinion) if I only claim that the content I already downloaded should still be accessible.

Your car analogy is interesting… If your car was paid off but got repossessed later because you said something nasty about the dealership on a forum, that would be a gross miscarriage of justice, even if they buried a clause deep in their sale terms granting themselves such an unconscionable right.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#653

Post by netizen-936824 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #478

selfhoster11 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partition it geographically. If they want to compete in certain cities/regions/countries where the user base exceeds a certain number, they must spin off subsidiaries for that area. I can't imagine people looking for a date on the other end of the country outside of very specific circumstances.

Geographic partition is what we did to Bell, and that really doesn't seem to have helped much. If the only way to choose a competitor is to move, there's still really no competition. No one spent thousands of dollars moving across the country because the telephone company there was better.

Weirdly enough that's what the US is doing with government on a state level. With people claiming that each state is an "experiment" even though the people there likely don't have a choice in the matter.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#654

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #426

shadowgovt wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean because a company tends to explode from "smaller than $MARKET_SHARE" to "larger than $MARKET_SHARE" in a discontinuous fashion. So since a company can't really predict when it will happen, every company providing service would need to prep from the ground up to provide the described level of relatively non-automated high-touch support this proposal describes. It'd raise the cost to build a startup. ... not to…

If you have automated rule enforcement, then you already have a formal specification of your rules, and informing the user of what rule they have broken should be trivial. If you have humans doing the bans manually, then you already have a human in the loop.

The appeals process mandate is the part that would add a lot of cost that doesn't currently exist. It puts a human in the loop on the back side of the automated process. And once you add an appeals process, you can expect everybody to attempt to go through it... False positives will of course appeal, and bad actors have no disincentive to appeal for the simple sake of gumming up the system for fun.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#655

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #407

shadowgovt wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean because a company tends to explode from "smaller than $MARKET_SHARE" to "larger than $MARKET_SHARE" in a discontinuous fashion. So since a company can't really predict when it will happen, every company providing service would need to prep from the ground up to provide the described level of relatively non-automated high-touch support this proposal describes. It'd raise the cost to build a startup. ... not to…

Same argument used against gdpr all the time, and proven false all the time. It's easy to be small and compliant.

You can comply with GDPR by refraining from collecting data.

You can't provide an online service while refraining from providing an online service.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#656

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

selfhoster11 wrote: post #425

shadowgovt wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing about being an Internet startup... You never know when you're going to explode and suddenly jump from a ten-thousand-user service to a milliion-user service. So supporting this would require a company to take all manner of new precautions that companies currently don't (circuit-breaker on the new account creation system? But then your growth stalls and your potential customers go to a competitor inst…

If you're suddenly a million-user service, you should easily have enough revenue to implement the regulations during a grace period.

Assuming you have a revenue model. What was Twitter's revenue model when they had their first million users?

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#657

Post by lolinder » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

netizen-936824 wrote: post #653

lolinder wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geographic partition is what we did to Bell, and that really doesn't seem to have helped much. If the only way to choose a competitor is to move, there's still really no competition. No one spent thousands of dollars moving across the country because the telephone company there was better.

Weirdly enough that's what the US is doing with government on a state level. With people claiming that each state is an "experiment" even though the people there likely don't have a choice in the matter.

The difference is that state policies are so impactful in everyday life that people very much do choose where they're going to live based at least in part on state government decisions. The same cannot be said for most corporations you could conceivably split along the same lines.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#658

Post by munk-a » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #578

munk-a wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that services weren't rendered - even if I'm totally certain they've got some BS in their TOS somewhere that specifically called out that it would be within the bounds of the service offering to take your money and give you only the fake experience of being a tinder user.

Contracts that are completely one-side are not legally binding. They have to offer you something for your money.

If I set up a bazaar theme park where patrons would have the privilege of haggling over the price of items and paying the price - but never actually receive the item (as per expectations). I would be amazed if such a theme park would be considered a breach of contract.

Tinder could argue that the shadow banned user is still paying to have the "Tinder Experience"... though, again, I think the difficulty would be arguing that this aligned with service expectations from the customer.

Contracts can't be completely one-sided - they must provide some sort of consideration to each party - but they can be extremely one-sided. Often times if your company is changing their vacation policy or other key employment benefit all the employees will receive a one or five dollar bonus - that bonus is because you're signing on to a contract where you're literally just giving up benefits so there's a legal requirement to give you something in exchange.

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#659

Post by stathibus » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #614

stathibus wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's innocent until proven guilty in a court of law Are you suggesting that private companies should have to take their users to court before disabling accounts

I'm suggesting that HN commenters shouldn't automatically side with Big Tech just because the ban victim doesn't have proof of innocence.

Raising doubt is not "siding with big tech"

Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech

#660

Post by diebeforei485 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

drevil-v2 wrote: post #641

diebeforei485 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Online dating sites/apps seem like they'd be a nightmare. So right now it's pretty much considered impolite / not socially acceptable to ask someone out except on dating apps. This is definitely a downside. But the upside is that a match on a dating app is an explicit acknowledgement of mutual interest, so it's clear that you're meeting up to go on a date and not just hanging out.

> So right now it's pretty much considered impolite / not socially acceptable to ask someone out except on dating apps Says who?

If you're in your mid-20s in most US metro areas (except in the South, perhaps) - this is what it's like.