Stop for a moment, and think what happens when our increasingly-advocated "cashless society" ends up being owned by a few "too big to fail" institutions.
Run afoul of some policy, or mistakenly triggered monitoring, and suddenly you are penniless. Maybe your phone and Internet bills go unpaid, and you are connectionless.
Right now, Google can kill your email (et al.) and Amazon can take away your books. Paypal can freeze online payments and balance.
Who you gonna call, when they take away it all?
Given that this is alread de facto business practice and not about to go away, it's sorely in need of regulation.
"Regulation?! Abomination!!"
Well, how do you think we got regulation in the first place? People getting screwed over by circumstances too big to effectively fight, as individuals.
Yeah, some of it went bad. But baby, bathwater. And with changing technology, we are back to individuals getting screwed by circumstances very difficult or impossible to fight and remedy, as an individual.
Run afoul of some policy, or mistakenly triggered monitoring, and suddenly you are penniless. Maybe your phone and Internet bills go unpaid, and you are connectionless.
Right now, Google can kill your email (et al.) and Amazon can take away your books. Paypal can freeze online payments and balance.
Who you gonna call, when they take away it all?
Given that this is alread de facto business practice and not about to go away, it's sorely in need of regulation.
"Regulation?! Abomination!!"
Well, how do you think we got regulation in the first place? People getting screwed over by circumstances too big to effectively fight, as individuals.
Yeah, some of it went bad. But baby, bathwater. And with changing technology, we are back to individuals getting screwed by circumstances very difficult or impossible to fight and remedy, as an individual.
The long-term effect of crap customer support.