I would probably use the word "service" and I specifically don't mean "web based service". If someone is providing a service (for money?) then you should have the right to speak to a human about issues with your service. That seems reasonable to me.

But people are specifically saying it doesn't have to be for money. If I've made some open source tool that people use for free, do I really need to provide phone support - also for free?

You're not providing a service though are you? You're providing intellectual property for people to do things with.

And if I throw an instance of it up on my web server that runs on a raspberry pi next to the cat litter in my basement? Now do I need to provide phone support to the world?

Minimum headcount requirement would render this irrelevant, and make sense in the spirit of the regulation.

If that is important to you, what prevents you from only doing business with companies who will operate on terms you find agreeable? Is it necessary to force others to avoid low-touch, low-cost companies/services that they appear to be perfectly happy with?

The varying answers to this are effectively political positions. I would suggest that in this case (like in several others) competition is insufficient to guarantee that I have that choice. If I have a GSuite account, but I think that Google's support is rubbish who else can I go to that provides a similar level of service?

To use another example - there are various consumer protection laws in the UK and EU. They cover all sorts of things like guaranteeing safety standards and requiring companies to accept returns. They have arisen over time to cover situations where consumers aren't capable of making the decision (e.g. safety which is complex or you might not find out for 10 years) or it's not something companies compete on but it's something you want for customers (e.g. returns).

Different political approaches, such as the more liberal one in the US leaves it more up to competition, the idea being that competition provides for consumers and it's easier to grow and operate businesses so the economy flourishes and everyone does well that way.

I'd suggest that it's not a perfect system and that you have to fill in the gaps. This is why America is rediscovering the union - in theory companies compete for the job market. If one job is incredibly shitty then employees can leave and get another one. This should provide competitive advantage to companies to make jobs non shitty and companies that don't can't hire and die out. In practice, for reasons that I don't fully understand, that hasn't worked out. Covid has been a trigger for some movement here and therefore some pressure, but it hasn't solved all the problems. Instead an alternate approach can work where employees can bargain collectively.

If no one offers GSuite or a similar competitor to you under terms that you find acceptable, do you have a right to demand that they offer “just like GSuite, only with an additional telephone hotline”?

For me, that answer is a clear no, in that you are not (and should not be) guaranteed that the market provides you such a choice nor does it offer you the choice to deny others the freedom to choose GSuite as it sits today in features and pricing.

Should we have minimum wage, FDA certification, or workplace safety requirements or should we let the market sort all that out too?

Now that you’ve brought them in: I don’t think it should illegal to contract for work however you like and think that cannabis being an FDA Schedule 1 drug is a ludicrous overreach far out of proportion to the facts or what I think the proper mandate of government is, so yeah, I do think the individuals in a market often have a better answer than government bans on individual freedoms.

If you slap together 50 lines of code, can you attempt a valuation and get funding for it?

:shrug:

Are you 'side hustling' to make money and thus having customers?

What's a customer? I don't charge money, but neither does Google. Where is the line drawn?

ooo good point. Like if you have Google ads running on your page generating trivial income, yes it would become more challenging to define a customer.

I think this would probably be addressed in a minimum size (headcount) before the regulation is required, which makes sense because the problem is businesses scaling their customer base and scope beyond their physical resources.

Generally if you're making money off of me or if I'm giving money in exchange for services - customer.

Here are some real world examples that would hold up pre-current state: Club: even if I dont pay for a beverage or cover, I am in fact a customer. Shown by the fact that if I get injured at said club, or other events occur the responsible parties are managing/own the club.

Print shop: Go into a shop, pay for a thing or service, are a customer.

There was a time, that many of us can remember, where automated phone services were nascent, there was no IVR and there was definitely no complex intent recognition paired with sentiment analysis.

The smallest little business needed a phone. When it rang, they answered it. Those businesses afforded it and frankly the min. wage has barely gone up since then so a business, one that exchanges a service/place/goods/my information for money, can afford to do it.

I am in full agreement with my perception of OP's comment.

I hear you, and you're point seems logical to me. However, would this not put an end to the public web as we know it? Specifically self-hosting.

What do you think about implementing this with a minimum organization size? I just do not see this same problem happening with small firms, generally they are easy to get in touch with. I wouldn't want them regulated unless the nature of the problem changed.

Completely okay with it being restricted to a revenue generation or size of company.

I'd make the discrepancy of revenue generation because otherwise a company may just find itself full of contractors and not enough FTEs to qualify for having this 'right to speak with a human' (like Uber).

wdyt