

Regulate Free Web Services? Let's see why that's wrong, and dumb. - bradgessler
http://seaneby.com/regulate-free-web-services-lets-see-why-thats

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jlcgull
I have to say I agree with Sean here... Read the fine print before you commit
your digital life into the hands of strangers... Yes, even if they come
dressed in slick Web2.0 shininess, they are still strangers and once you hit
that "I Accept" button you actually (surprisingly!) do accept those Terms &
Conditions... and almost always the T & C fine print has the information that
says this website/company/service may be gone without warning anytime !!!

Don't expect to be bailed out just because you were dumb... Oh wait, this is
the USA, people expect to be bailed out all the time here, don't they?

BTW, a very true saying, quite relevant in the USA is: "VOTE WITH YOUR
DOLLARS"... if you don't like a service, don't support it... and if you do
like the service, be ready to vote for it with your $$$s.

~~~
dshafer
I agree completely with your observation about Ts&Cs. OTOH, I have a legal
background and I know that agreements like this one (they used to be called
'rip-and-sign' back in the days of packaged software) are hard to enforce. I
know of the problems and I still seldom do more than scan them to see if they
contain an egregious paragraph or two that I look out for.

I'm not sure if Americans "expect to be bailed out all the time," but I do
know that we expect as consumers not to have our rights trampled on
arbitrarily. As a nation of laws, that's inconvenient sometimes but it's
vastly preferable to any alternative I've seen.

~~~
chbarts
> I'm not sure if Americans "expect to be bailed out all the time," but I do
> know that we expect as consumers not to have our rights trampled on
> arbitrarily.

Right. Personal responsibility means companies must be held responsible if
they don't follow ethical standards, something that goes strictly beyond
obeying the law. Personal responsibility is thus the foundation of a free
market.

~~~
jamie_ca
And what ethical standard do you see broken here?

Ning provided a service, has realized that it's not financially feasable, and
in the interest of (I presume) their owners/shareholders have decided to
discontinue that service. They're allowing groups to continue using the
service for a fee if they so desire.

Personal responsibility means weighing the pros/cons of trusting services to
"the cloud". It's why there are a few things I still run on a machine in my
basement, rather than move to an online provider, even though it could be
cheaper for me. It's why I actively back up important documents (and yes,
photos) to more than one location.

~~~
derefr
It's your ethical responsibility, whether as an individual or a corporation,
to only let people _rely_ on you if you're _reliable_. If you're not, you have
to go out of your way to prevent people from leaning on you, because you know
they'll fall over when you step aside. It is their ethical responsibility _as
well_ to find out if you're reliable, but it goes both ways.

~~~
anamax
> If you're not, you have to go out of your way to prevent people from leaning
> on you

How do you do that? That's a serious question. How about two different ways to
"prevent people from leaning on you"?

Did Ning ever promise reliability for free?

Are there any free and reliable services? If not, isn't "free" an indicator of
"not reliable"?

