I would prefer 10,000 service providers to one big one that gets to read all the plaintext communication of the entire planet.
As it stands, I have a bunch of photos on my phone that would almost certainly get flagged by over-eager/overly sensitive child porn detection — close friends and family sending me photos of their kids at the beach. I've helped bathe and dress some of those kids. There's nothing nefarious about any of it, but it's close enough that services wouldn't take the risk, and that would be a loss to us all.
(Snark aside, in your opinion are there comments on HN that dang would be criminally liable for if it weren't for safe harbor?)
You have to understand that Europe doesn't give a shit about techbro libertarians and their desire for a new Lamborghini.
If you’re hosting content, why shouldn’t you be responsible, because your business model is impossible if you’re held to account for what’s happening on your premises?
Without safe harbor, people might have to jump through the hoops of buying their own domain name, and hosting content themselves, would that be so bad?