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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Let's extrapolate in the opposite direction: what if you could keep living in a place without paying for it, never pay medical bills, never pay your lawyer, never pay for your TV, never pay your taxes, etc.?

I'm pretty sure that society as we know it would collapse.

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What's your point? Nobody here is arguing that the client should be able to not pay for services rendered.

The post I'm replying to is basically saying, imagine a world where people deny you things if you don't pay for them. I'm just pointing out what the world would be like if that wasn't true.

No, the parent was saying imagine a world where those things were denied by unilateral decision without judicial mediation.

That's already the world we live in for many things, including some of his examples (e.g. TVs being repossessed), so, I don't see why that matters much.

I think it quite clearly makes a tremendous difference. TVs being repossessed was an erroneous example, yes, but I don't think that presents a significant problem with the point - this was a step beyond simple repossession.

All kinds of things like this happen without court intervention. Don't pay your cable bill? No cable for you. Don't pay for your car? Repossessed. Don't pay your credit cards? They'll report you to the credit bureaus and you'll have a hard time getting any more credit.

Some products fall into a category where it's harder to take stuff away, like health care and housing, because that stuff is critical to life. I'm pretty sure that a web site falls solidly into the first category, though.

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