It’s not a “fancy TOS”. Almost all terms of service for almost every service online reserve the right to terminate service at any time, with or without cause. It’s just like at will employment, or any other voluntary association.
Either party can revoke consent at any time. If the customer can close their account at any time without notice, why shouldn’t the operator be able to as well?
The service did nothing wrong. They’re not a backup service, and if a customer ends up being more of a headache (either financial, emotional, or simply just time/attention) than the operator deems their custom worth, they have EVERY RIGHT to opt out of future transactions.
Furthermore, the customer explicitly agreed to this when they signed up. Even if they hadn’t, though, it is entirely reasonable for either party to the business relationship to be able to say, at any time, “this isn’t working for me, let’s stop.”
That’s how consent works in real life outside of business contracts, too.
Yeah, I agree that ghost likely hasn't violated any business/legal contracts. That said, they've certainly violated an implicit social contract for the behavior expected from service providers of their type.
So to say "The service did nothing wrong."... is correct but only in a technical, legally correct sense.
There is no social contract besides the legal one. The legal contract says it is the full and complete agreement between the parties. There is no other reasonable expectation besides what is said explicitly in the contract.
The term “social contract” refers to the implicit agreement we have with people with whom we do not have an explicit, written agreement. This one was specified in writing, in full.
There is absolutely both a legal and a social contract in play here. That's not unusual, either. In almost any situation involving cooperation between humans, the participants are implicitly agreeing to a larger or different set of terms than may be specified in any legal contracts. These contracts are even sometimes contradictory.
If someone violates a legal contract you have the right to get back damages via the legal system. Similarly, if someone violates a social contract you have the right to respond via social means, for example, by writing and disseminating a blog post detailing your negative experiences.
Either party can revoke consent at any time. If the customer can close their account at any time without notice, why shouldn’t the operator be able to as well?
The service did nothing wrong. They’re not a backup service, and if a customer ends up being more of a headache (either financial, emotional, or simply just time/attention) than the operator deems their custom worth, they have EVERY RIGHT to opt out of future transactions.
Furthermore, the customer explicitly agreed to this when they signed up. Even if they hadn’t, though, it is entirely reasonable for either party to the business relationship to be able to say, at any time, “this isn’t working for me, let’s stop.”
That’s how consent works in real life outside of business contracts, too.