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Comment by jmward01 | Hacker News Reader

A core concept here is that of ownership. People think they own their accounts and data. Stories like these, and unfortunately the law, make it clear that they don't own anything. I personally think it is false advertising of companies to even hint at ownership. Words like 'buy' shouldn't be allowed since it implies owning. They should only be allowed to say 'rent' or 'grant a limited license'.

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When you sign up for an Apple account, you aren't "buying" anything. In fact there is a set of terms & conditions you agree to when signing up which most likely includes language stating that your account can be closed with the discretion of the platform owner. What we need isn't a shift from "buying" to "renting", but instead something akin to a Consumer Bill of Rights that states that you are entitled to appeal account closure if you are in good standing and can prove as much.

This is really the consumer's fault for not reading a 5-billion word terms and conditions contract before they sign up for one of the two nearly-identical phone brands they need to operate in the modern economy.

And not having gone through the formal contract law education required to be able to understand that TOS.

I would rather the law make it such that you really are buying, than codify that you own nothing. The ambiguity isn't great, on that we agree, but why would you weaken the citizen's standing to remove it?

Should people really not have the option to not-buy if they see other advantages in it? Should the idea of ownership being valuable be imposed upon citizens? (And if we all accept that it has value, could that not simply reflect in a price differential?)

I want a tech shift to allow this concept. Ownership will require me to physically maintain my own data, or at least have the ability to do so. I really want personal cloud capabilities so that services like iTunes and others are required to be able to use my own personal, and completely independently maintained, storage. That way I could either self host or contract out but then Apple would loose their vendor lock-in and services like iTunes would be forced to play nicer. The core problem is the iCloud lock-in/bundling. If I were looking at anti-trust breakup I would start with this idea, forcing alternative cloud storage options.

The law can’t change that you own nothing. What do you own if the company closes, if the shutdown their servers. Law can’t enforce that the servers keep running.

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