Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

By the same logic, are social media companies somehow obligated to never shutdown as long as they have users?

If not, can they shut down and then only come back for users using non-grandfathered terms?

If so, can they shut down for only users using grandfathered terms?

Aren't we now back to where we started?

---

I disagree pretty fundamentally that you have any right to have a company continue to host content for you (which is equivalent to having a right to having a company repeat what you said to anyone who asks - which is clearly a free speech violation) short of them signing a contract with you guaranteeing that.

I agree that as a user it's very frustrating when something you use changes what it is, but I don't see how a social media platform is any different from a bar in that regards. They both derive a lot of their value from their users, it's frustrating for the users of both if they fundamentally change who they are, but it's their right do that anyways.

I just don't think it should be legal for a company to offer to store something for you and then randomly stop storing it for you. As far as I know, if you buy a storage location, even if you stop paying for it the people at the storage facility can't just immediately toss your stuff into the street: there is a legally mandated process by which they have to store things, contact you, and later work with the state to rid themselves of your stuff. The problem for me then becomes one of making sure that the relationship involved feels like the relationship that these people put in their giant pile of click-through legalese. (And if the result of this is that free social networks supported by the potential future promise of ad revenue become impossible to legally build as the insurance required becomes too high, all I can say is "good riddance": the world will be all for the better if these companies have to figure out customer-focused sustainable business models before launching.)

I have recently been getting emails from Photobucket saying that I need to pay for their service now or they will delete my photos. There is no option to download my photos without paying. If I want to access them at all then I must pay.

I don't know what to think about whether this is right or wrong but it sure feels scummy. It also makes my worry about what might happen when bigger internet companies are down on their luck.

> There is no option to download my photos without paying

If I was going to target something here to fix, it would be this. Holding your data hostage feels much more legally suspect than just deciding to no longer run photobucket and deleting your data outright (before, for instance, selling the hard-drives to recoup costs).

In fact, I think the GDPR may already have fixed this for people protected by it? If you have photos you care about you might try sending a GDPR data request and see what happens (even if you're not covered by it, there's no harm in trying).

I'm not sure a bar is the best analogy here though. Yes a bar also derives value from it's users in a way, but a customers value there only really exists for as long as they are in the building. The customer doesn't invest their time and effort in long term value that exists after they leave. There's a moderate community aspect (referrals, recommendations, etc) but not as strongly as social media (or any contribution based site). Feeling a bar owes you something here seems like a stretch unless they solicit donations/volunteers to do a renovation or something.

With social media sites a user is adding content that continues to provide value over time. The user is investing their time, expertise and energy (and often IP as well since some sites claim ownership of contributions), into the site. When they leave, that content often sticks around. It's reasonable for the user to feel that that site owes them something in return.

Legally and realistically I'm not sure how that can be implemented, but the desire there is reasonable and different than a bar.

Sure, a bar isn't a perfect analogy, I used it because it was the first thing that came to mind that got the point across about community building (which seemed to be the main thing the person I was responding to considered to be of value).

Maybe a stronger analogy would be a maker space, since the community building bit is at least as strong as with a bar (maybe stronger), and there's some sort of "content" that you create as well (though unlike on twitter, much of the content is physical property instead of information).

You might reach a conclusion that you should have GDPR like data-rights as a result of that analogy, but I don't think it materially affects any of the conclusions I'm arguing in the post about investment of time and energy not giving you the right to continued service.

it is simply balance of power between parties like all human affairs

if you want to improve it - work to increase accountability (so more liars and cheaters get caught) & accessibility (so young and fresh minds have opportunity) and these two things together benefit new competitors over abusive incumbents, and society as a whole

Reply on news.ycombinator.com