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Comment by LapsangGuzzler | Hacker News Reader

The power to completely cut off someone’s access to a service without recourse or explanation, be it email or food delivery or something else, is one of the most horrifying and dystopian realities we as an industry have willed into existence.

Glad to see municipalities finally taking some territory on this, it’s long overdue.

Edit: typo

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Note that's not strictly speaking what this article is about

This article is about cutting off the workers' employment with the delivery/etc app, not the end users' ability to use the app

Yes, but remember that the polite fiction of the rideshare companies is that they're providing a service to the drivers by connecting them with riders. So the gp's point is a sound one even in this context.

Not strictly speaking, sure, but I believe that the applicable phrase here is, "Same difference."

Gig companies call it a two-sided market place and just use different names to describe “producer” and “consumer”. From this point of view both are users.

I’m wondering if the biggest problem is that at some point in history, losing access to an email account wasn’t the biggest deal - fast forward 20 years and I’d prefer to lose access to my physical mailing address, anything important is sent electronically.

I’m still not sure if there’s anything preventing TLD providers from revoking your domain for any purposes (higher bidder, etc).

There needs to be a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to a US government provided email, electronic money account that can never be blocked from receiving and sending money, and identity verification services as part of everyone’s rights.

That is a law. It is illegal to seize domestic mail without a warrant.

Nothing in the comment mentions domestic mail, just email

Nothing in the constitution distinguishes the two they’re both mail.. which is obvious from the root word in the two.

The constitution provides that:

> The Congress shall have Power...To establish Post Offices and post Roads

It does not obligate the congress to do so, and most certainly (and unsurprisingly) does not contain language that guarantees any sort of right to email service.

Email is a subset of mail ergo the laws that apply to mail apply to email. Are you telling me that the method of delivery whether it be by horse, car, person, or telephone wire should impact the applicability of the law?

Citation please. Literally nothing you wrote is correct in the United States.

I don’t need a citation other than the fact that they share the common root word, and that people with common sense, which we would hope to be on the Supreme Court, see the argument that I’ve made is perfectly logical. I don’t need freaking precedence. I’m setting the precedence right now by giving a better logical argument than anybody else apparently ever has

Have a nice day.

This is outstandingly wrong, the internet is no more protected under the constitution than any network of computers (aka none) from free speech, mail delivery, etc.

You may make the argument that it should be, and I might even tend to agree, but you don’t get to declare that the Constitution agrees with you. You can certainly even claim the spirit of the law should extend to the internet due to its ubiquity (which i might agree with as well), but that’s nothing but an interpretation.

You’re pushing on a string here — when I asked for some supporting evidence for their claims, the poster responded that… Well… I’ll let the response speak for itself:

> I don’t need a citation other than the fact that they share the common root word, and that people with common sense, which we would hope to be on the Supreme Court, see the argument that I’ve made is perfectly logical. I don’t need freaking precedence. I’m setting the precedence right now by giving a better logical argument than anybody else apparently ever has

Americans don't have a constitutional right to food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, employment or to not get shot in the street, and you want the constitution to guarantee everyone an email address?

I mean, the real issues here are labor and consumer rights, and the arbitrary power that American capitalism gives to corporations and employers, but God forbid Americans take either of those seriously, that would be communist.

Seems much cheaper and easier to implement than those other things.

Cheaper and easier isn't always better, or most necessary.

Better than what? Currently, there is no legally guaranteed infrastructure for online transactions and identity verification.

Clearly, the world is transitioning to a place where your quality of life without an online presence is severely reduced.

Currently, due to the lack of government provided infrastructure, we all live at the mercy of a few giant corporations, who answer to no one and are free to refuse business to anyone, at anytime.

I do not see why anyone would want private banks to be able to hold the specter of canceling your account and blacklisting you over your head, or google/apple/Microsoft/whoever locking you out of email, or some underpaid ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile worker forwarding your SMS so someone can steal your 2FA codes and empty your accounts.

On the contrary, if the government of India brings such a proposal I would be terrified.

I would not want the lives of citizens be tied so strongly with government provided infrastructure that the babus can "turn off" your digital life on a whim and suffocate you out of existence...maybe because you tweeted a joke, criticized a low level minister, praised a neighboring country, "hurt religious sentiments", or other flavors of independent opinions and free speech that the rulers of the day (present or future) don't support.

Fears like these are already voiced by privacy and citizens rights activists about the national ID system (Aadhaar), digital payments infrastructure, and all kinds of interlinking of databases and making such linkages mandatory for availing all kinds of services -- from birth certificates, to banking, to tax returns, to voting.

> that the babus can "turn off" your digital life on a whim and suffocate you out of existence

Hence the constitutional amendment. If you cannot trust the government to uphold the law, perhaps like it is in India, then this might not be a solution. But it should still work in the US.

They could already offer those as part of the basic postal service, but they choose not to.

Yes, the USPS is an ideal vehicle to do it (they already verify identities for passports), but it would also be necessary to have a law that says this digital "personhood" cannot be taken away. For example, even if you are convicted of crimes, you should not be able to lose your ability to receive and send electronic money.

I think we're in the worst of both worlds currently. Our online identities are already critically important, yet we're still bound to the physicial address for critical things like banks, employment screening, etc. that refuse to move away from physicial residency check mostly by inertia (I see laws not getting updated as part of that inertia)

I doubt a lot of that is inertia though. Most of those are due to tax/regulatory burdens that make it important to have some idea where your customers/counterparties are physically located. Outside of some inconceivably radical changes, I don't see most of the stuff you list being able to get away from the idea of a permanent residence.

This is unrelated to the access to the service, this is about gig workers who do the service but can be cut by Uber/Amazon/etc.

> The power to completely cut off someone’s access to a service without recourse or explanation

This is also relevant a different context: Google (or some other similar provider) cutting off your access suddenly, throwing your life suddenly into extreme disarray.

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