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First, let's just ignore the straw man of:

>Honestly, is this any different from a company ninety years ago denying service to non-whites because it "could be perceived as encouraging the races to intermarry?"

I think we can both agree that it's a hyperbolic statement. Moving beyond that, as a company, I should have every right to decide who can and cannot use my service. Just because I provide a public-facing API doesn't mean I have to allow you do to what you want with it. You're building off of my brand and my infrastructure. If I don't want Initech Inc. to be associated with file sharing, fire arms, or even the Irish, that's entirely within my rights. I'd be far more aghast if companies were forced to take any comers.

On this specific issue, scan the headlines:

"Pirate’s dream come true: Boxopus pushes torrents to your Dropbox account" "Boxopus Is A Pirate Friend, Drops Torrents Directly Into Dropbox‎" "New App Makes Pirating Movies A One-Click Process"

The articles also point out that Boxopus was quickly integrated with a number of torrent sites that host bootleg downloads.

The absolute last thing Dropbox wants to be associated with is piracy. The company is in much more danger of going out of business due to piracy issues than to any competitor.

> If I don't want Initech Inc. to be associated with file sharing, fire arms, or even the Irish, that's entirely within my rights. I'd be far more aghast if companies were forced to take any comers.

I'm rather aghast that any companies think this way. You might as well say that it is well within Google's right to shut down my Google Docs account because they don't want to be associated with the bad poetry I write using it.

One problem with this attitude is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly functioning economy. If I have to worry that any online service might chose to shut down my access for any arbitrary reason, then I am strongly disincentived from using online services. The strength of any economy is in no small part due to the ease and fluidity with which trusted transactions can take place. Remove the forces that allow us to trust the transactions, and the economy will falter.

The only reason that people are mostly willing to overlook this issue is because service providers exercise their putative right to deny service for arbitrary reasons rarely. But if you as a service provider exercise this putative right more liberally, then you are damaging the entire economic system (albeit only to some small degree for an isolated provider).

The only silver lining in all this free market rhetoric is that hopefully the free market will step in and put you out of business. Unfortunately, however, this often takes a lot longer than it should once network effects have engaged.

P.S. What's with this trend of downvoting people just because someone doesn't happen to agree with what someone else has to say. This is rather rude, if you ask me.

> I'm rather aghast that any companies think this way. You might as well say that it is well within Google's right to shut down my Google Docs account because they don't want to be associated with the bad poetry I write using it.

What he is saying is that he believes it is Google's right to do that and it is irrelevant to the fact it is stupid.

> One problem with this attitude is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly functioning economy.

Sure if people just put up with it but I don't think anyone is suggesting we just accept dropbox's position and pretend it never happened.

> What he is saying is that he believes it is Google's right to do that and it is irrelevant to the fact it is stupid.

And what I'm saying is that it is NOT within Google's right to do this. Among other reasons, it is not within Google's right to fsck up the economy that everyone depends on.

On the other other hand, I fully acknowledge that the best remedy is not always more government, since that doesn't always lead to the greatest utility either.

No shirt, No shoes, No Piracy, No Service.

> it is not within Google's right to fsck up the economy that everyone depends on.

I shut down a non-technology brick and mortar store almost a year ago, partly because of dwindling sales due to the economy, and more importantly because I had a single customer that maintained over 60% of my revenue. That customer decided to move the business they were giving me in-house. Negotiations had been ongoing for over 4 years, both to (naively) prevent them from doing so (it wasn't a surprise that they did, they had been talking about it for years), and to suggest that we could merge businesses. Suffice to say, they hired someone else and I was forced to walk away.

I went through a period of "Fuck them", but I had known all along that if they walked away from me, I was screwed. Relying on a single 3rd party API is exactly the same thing. It's a contract with another business entity. If they decide to implement your additions into their core product (take for example today's Podcast app release form Apple), or if don't like your hair color, or they just don't like what you are doing, it's not "fuck them" it's "what's phase 2?". Grow up and move on. This is business. No one is entitled to consume another company's API, or else there would be no such thing as an API key.

> No one is entitled to consume another company's API, or else there would be no such thing as an API key.

That would depend on what you mean by "entitled" and by "consume". Lawsuits happen all the time because one entity believes that another entity backed out of a deal in bad faith.

> One problem with this attitude is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly functioning economy. If I have to worry that any online service might chose to shut down my access for any arbitrary reason, then I am strongly disincentived from using online services.

You're looking at only one side of the issue, and the smaller one at that. Let me flip it around for you:

One problem with the attitude that by providing an online service I'm obligated to maintain it for users I don't wish to is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly functioning economy. If I have to worry about supporting users when it's against my better interest, then I am strongly disincentivized from offering an online service.

> If I have to worry about supporting users when it's against my better interest, then I am strongly disincentivized from offering an online service.

The situation is different for individuals or small companies than it is for large companies. Large companies (that are not structured as mutuals, or somesuch) generally only have one interest: maximizing their profit. But they often tend to use a Prisoner's Dilemma's strategy against the world that might maximize their next quarterly return but does not act to make the economic pie bigger for everyone.

If I don't want Initech Inc. to be associated with file sharing, fire arms, or even the Irish, that's entirely within my rights

Regarding the Irish part, I don't think that is within your rights.

In the US Title II of the Civil Rights act Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce;[1]

In other countries article 7 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights (All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.)[2] may outlaw that kind of discrimination (depending on your countries international treaty obligations and local laws)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Title_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...

It's against the code to discriminate against national origin, but not country of residence. The Irish can't use Hulu, for example.

Oh right. I guess the OP could have meant that (I'm Australian, so quite familiar with that scenario).

Because it's a slippery slope from there to eliminating property rights entirely. If you require companies to declare all instances under which they will terminate service they'll just amend their ToS or add insanely broad clauses that let them disconnect anyone at any time.

This is the fundamental problem with SaaS and web APIs more generally (a SaaS application is just a web API for humans in some sense): you don't control it.

It isn't installed on your hard drive. If the vendor says "you can't use this any more" you can't give them the middle finger and keep using your copy while you find a good lawyer. You're done. That's it.

Does that mean I think everyone should stop using SaaS and APIs? Absolutely not. I would cry if I had to give up Google Docs, Gmail, etc. But I'm not under any illusions about who is in charge, and I make decisions accordingly.

I completely agree that companies shouldn't do this, but I don't think that most people on HackerNews do. A while back a co-worker of mine wrote a blog post about how a patent troll signed up for our service, and we decided to let them use it even though we really didn't want to. That seems like the same story with the opposite outcome.

Nearly all of the comments on HackerNews said that the decision showed a lack of conviction and that we should have denied service to the patent troll. I don't think that's appropriate for all the reasons you listed, but it would seem that we're in the minority.

Note: I agree with you that companies should not be allowed by their users to get away with this, I don't agree there should be a law prohibiting it.

Honestly, is this any different from a company ninety years ago denying service to non-whites because it "could be perceived as encouraging the races to intermarry?

Yes it different, in degree, effect and legal status.

Not only that, it is extremely offensive to compare a company stopping another company using their service to download files with an evil social institution closely related to the lynching of people affected by it.

A storeowner has the right to kick you out of his store any time he sees fit. It's his business. Don't like it? Go somewhere else or go build your own. www.dropbox.com and all their servers are Dropbox inc's "store". They can kick anyone out because it's their territory. It's as simple as that.

Not sure how this is in states but in europe they don't. It's illegal not to sell you stuff, if it's public, unless there are certain requirements met that are clearly stated in the law. Those are along the lines of "alcohol to drunk people" etc.

Please quote your sources, because it's exactly the reverse. I can prohibit anyone from entering my club or shoe store if I don't like their color of shirt. I just in most places and under most circumstances can't do it based on an exhaustively listed set of factors such as gender, skin color, ethnicity, etc.

Furthermore, saying 'in Europe' doesn't mean anything. You might mean 'in most European jurisdictions I know of', or 'under EU law', or 'under Council of Europe law', or whatever, but even then there are so many nuances that that statement alone doesn't say anything.

A case from the Swedish supreme court, deciding that a shop owner is not allowed to ban a repeat shoplifter from entering his store. [Swedish]: https://lagen.nu/dom/nja/1995s84

An answer from a Swedish "ask a lawyer" site, regarding whether it is allowed to deny entrance to a club. The answer is "only if that person is disturbing the public order, or if it is required to avoid a punishable offense from occurring". [Swedish]: http://lawline.se/answers/780

Has no one on the site tried to run a business?