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goodpoint

> I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account

No no no, companies should not be allowed to this kind of bait and switch:

1) provide a free service

2) gain market dominance, push out competitors, and turn into a necessity for millions of users

3) create lock-in and exploit the userbase

Essential public utilities are regulated (properly, in many countries) to avoid this.

In 2022 services like ISP, mobile carriers, email and instant messaging are almost essential. Millions of people need them to work, buy food, have access to health and government services.

And yet tech companies are never held responsible.

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It was never free. The bill was simply footed by investors who believed at some point, a viable product would bring in revenue. Sure, it was free TO YOU, (it still is) but do we really think the network provider, the servers, the administration, the code maintenance are something they are obligated to provide out of the goodness of their hearts?

I'd call Twitter many things, but never a necessity. And the contrived person for who it is, has an account and won't be bothered by a login prompt.

If Reddit or Twitter seems a necessity to you then you have problems and you should start working on them before you go around telling what someone should be allowed to do.

What’s exploitative about offering a free account?

A bit taken aback this still needs to be explained, but the point of having an account is so they can use your email address and phone number to correlate you & your actions across the entire internet to better surveil you & serve you behavior-modifying content.

The "free" service is also there to hurt competition, establish market dominance and later or do all sort of bait-and-switch.

Reminder: by dominating a market a company removes options and better alternatives from the end users.

I just explained how cornering a market works. What part of the 3 steps is unclear?

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