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Comment by bluesign | Hacker News Reader

I think it is kind of levels:

"can't participate in society without a mobile phone" "can't participate in society without internet" "can't participate in society without google"

not sure where is the logical correct threshold making it wrong. because we all accept maybe people not participating without internet.

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Clearly the logical threshold is when a single private corporation becomes the gatekeeper to your life. The internet itself is decentralized so that's fine. Mobile phones as a concept is also fine.

Almost. Having access to the internet requires a device, or public computer if available. A just society would at least maintain ability to interact with all government services through in-person and through post office. Universal access.

At least in some countries you can use a public computer at a library or other government-provided institution. I agree that it ideally shouldn't be required though.

> At least in some countries you can use a public computer at a library or other government-provided institution

...for now, at least.

This seems to be percieved as an explicit intended loophole. I've seen contests where they say "for free entry, go to website..." followed with "internet access can be obtained at libraries".

Obviously, the idea of "you don't have to pay to participate" has a strong legal footing, but I have to wonder if they can find a way to pivot that to "I don't have to acquire an Android/iOS device". Maybe they would develop a kiosk-mode version of the OS that will run apps tethered to a placeholder library account.

I hope people can see what I am saying here, but this is just what the Affordable Health Care Act was in the United States. The government forced up to buy health insurance from private companies, and no one saw a problem with that.

So having health care was dependent on a private third party.

I don't think it's an issue to require Internet to participate in society, just like it wouldn't be an issue to require a mobile phone if you can use any phone (including a Linux phone or degoogled Android).

The problem is that now you need a phone with Apple or Google software running it.

> not sure where is the logical correct threshold making it wrong

This can't be more clear: Forcing to use the duopoly is against the competition and is totally wrong.

I meant a bit like: Let's say you have 2 mobile phone operators in your country ( duopoly ) we are ok that for example using SMS for banking interaction ( second factor etc )

I think this is a process; and somehow slowly people accepting those levels, and in a society it becomes normal ( to have whatsapp for friend group, to have facebook for family photos etc etc ) and you are being left out eventually if you are outside of those norms.

So it is not so different for bank to require something like google provided software.

I think if we accept that market concentration for essential services cannot alawys be avoided, there must be an obligation for these companies to provide those services to everyone.

The difficult part is how to guarantee this right without opening the floodgates for all sorts of scammers and organised criminals.

We need some sort of due process proportional in cost to the effects of account terminations (or rejections) on people's lives.

Isn't this how utilities are regulated?

In the UK some utilities do have a legal duty to supply.

I'm not familiar with the details though, so I have no idea what happens if someone is accused of having violated their terms of service. I think there are different rules for different utilities.

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