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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

That would probably a step too far. But also unnecessary.

Make a law that requires them to give you a full refund for all hardware that you can’t use and all software purchased over the lifetime of the account.

That will make them incur a cost that makes it worthwhile for them to be more careful.

Edit: Downstream commenters make a good point. You'd have to put in a formula for "depreciation" of the refund, so you can't just get a refund years later.

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On the surface, this seems like an elegant solution. However, it also seems to me like it would need exceptions.

Since we are talking about online games, the topic of how to deal with people caught cheating (as in using third party cheating tools) comes to mind. It is typical to ban those people. If a ban was synonymous with a refund, there is little incentive to not cheat.

If the law allowed for exceptions like this (e.g. banned with cause), then it'd be pretty hollow as the company is also the final arbiter of what cause is.

It is possible I am missing something though as this is not something I have put a lot of thought into.

You bring up a good point, I've edited my comment. You'd need to add in a way to "depreciate" the refund.

For the cheating exception, I don't think it would be a problem. Most of those games have subscriptions, so there wouldn't be a lot to refund.

Feels to me like account moderations needs to be handled external to private companies operating a platform... like insurance or a credit history system

No need to ban them, just put them into a separate matchmaking bracket?

Shadow bans? That's a great idea. Probably even a better punishment than a full ban, too.

I like jedberg's depreciation idea, too. Maybe a combination of these answers all scenarios.

Not even, cheating can be a completely valid playstyle as long as everyone's doing it. Look up hack v hack.

Presumably the payment method will be banned and getting banned in a old game purposely to get a refund sounds like a lot of work for 60$. I can't imagine that would be significantly abuse.

Sellers should not be able to take away goods after the sell; that's pretty much universally understood as theft.

The EU actually has such a "conformity" law for goods[0], however I don't see how it would apply in this case. It also takes into account the point raised by the other commenters: "the seller can only refuse if this causes disproportionate costs on him in comparison with the alternative remedy, taking into account the value of the goods or the significance of the lack of conformity"

[0] https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer-topics/buyin...

So, after 5 years you can just do something stupid to get banned and get a full refund? Sweet.

Ensuring it can be used without an online account is actually reasonable.

Excellent point on the getting a refund years later. I've edited my comment to add that there would need to be depreciation on the refund.

> So, after 5 years you can just do something stupid to get banned and get a full refund? Sweet.

If this was the law, then companies would change the way their products work or the way they ban people. Instead of banning, on Facebook, they would prevent the user from posting and interacting with other users. You would in essence get a very nice advert-only feed but not banned.

And in the process making the experience deliberately awful.

I don't see how that doesn't indicate that outlawing a requirement for an account is so much more preferable.

> So, after 5 years you can just do something stupid to get banned and get a full refund?

Yes. They should be able to ban you from their online platform if you misuse it and don't behave yourself but they shouldn't have a right to brick the device you've bought, no matter what you do.

Pointing out to sibling comments that the actual law would be more complex than the specific wording here and that courts exist for a reason.

The bigger problem is that no individual would have any realistic hope of successfully suing facebook to prove unjust account termination.

A step in the right direction, but it wouldn't help with the other problem of device-as-a-service, which is the company going bankrupt.

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