Re:Google takes down profile pic because someone was flippin...
by billybob on Wednesday December 28, 2011 @11:43AM
(#3400335)
"direct competition with a corporation like Facebook or Google is virtually impossible..."
Even if that's true, it doesn't follow that those corporations MUST do what we want. I can't realistically build my own car, but it doesn't follow that Toyota has to build the kind of car I'd like to build. They'll do it if, and only if, there is enough market incentive to do so.
"and even the choice of opting out is becoming impossible; e.g. Spotify won't be the last company to require a Facebook for access to their services."
So? I have quit Facebook. If Spotify doesn't want to bother to give me a way to sign in, I won't bother to sign in. See? Opting out is easy. Either someone will offer me a service at a tradeoff I can accept, or they won't get my business.
We need to demand the right to be able to use these services on our own terms.
We DO pay for these services; we pay for these services with our attention and through the act of using them (and supplying the parent orgs with behavioural data).
However, because money doesn't change hands - we don't have the usual recourse to compensation if the services don't meet our expectations. I think this is a very sad thing - because it allows the companies running the services to use and propagate your argument; it's free .. don't like it? tough, build your own / don't use it.
In most cases it's not realistically possible to build a completing service - and even the choice of opting out is becoming impossible; e.g. Spotify won't be the last company to require a Facebook for access to their services.
There comes a point when direct competition with a corporation like Facebook or Google is virtually impossible for any organisation other than another corporation of similar size.