Lately I've seen posts of people who lost a "free" mail account. And people said "you don't own anything". But here, after paying... you still don't own anything.
I must be too old. I do not understand how can they take it away without refund.
I keep wondering why we as consumers allow this? I'm US based, and my bank closed one of my accounts and "held" my money due to suspected fraud when I deposited a good check. It took 2 months and a complaint to CFPB to get my funds released.
Before contacting CFPB, I was on numerous phone calls and made multiple trips to the local branch to get the funds released and it appeared that I would never get it back because one part of the bank does not communicate with the other. I had submitted all the documentation the risk department asked for but claimed they never received, and the local branches assured me it was sent, but could not give me a tracking number or reference number. After contacting CFPB the issue was magically resolved without any additional documents, apparently the documents were never lost based on their response.
When I asked how this is legal, they said I agreed to it when I opened the account, which is basically what every bank does.
So in a nutshell, nothing is yours even the money you worked hard for.
Their is a clause in their ToS which says when you buy something your are only renting it for the amount of time Amazon is happy to serve said content
This is why we need to educate people on how to pirate effectively and safely so big tech will have to listen to what the markets actually demands and what will be in the best interests of society
At least just never "rent" anything ever. If they don't explicitly mention it is a n endless perpetual license to said content and their terminology implies that it is then you should never give them money under any circumstance.
That's fine if the price reflects the value of it being temporary, but often they are selling it at a price that only makes sense for it being perpetual and also label it as such.
As long as that poor woman is still on the hook for millions of dollars over some CDs or whatever I’m not pirating anything no matter how “safe” it is promised to be.
That's the effect they were looking for. It's a basic terrorist tactic (in the original asymmetric warfare sense, not the "calling you a terrorist is an announcement that we're willing to violate our own professed norms to kill you and people like you" modern sense.) They found a sympathetic working class single native mother who had done relatively little filesharing to attack brutally, so average people could see and say "if they're willing to do that to her, they're certainly willing to do it to me." And the government announced with its verdict "and we'll help them do it."
My aging father, who has gone from a math-major programmer to nearly computer illiterate in 40 years, won't even take a file from me directly, out of fear. I think of that fear as a bit hysterical, but he uses Windows and an iPhone, so who am I to say that his devices won't report that file to the proper authorities some day in the future, after a forced update? Who am I to say it's not somehow doing it now, and flipping a flag at the NSA or Amazon marking him for special attention?
I obviously believe something like that at some level, with my insistence on FOSS and control over my devices.
The avenues for pirating have narrowed in an extreme way over the past five or so years. There can be no one professionally interested in piracy who isn't aware of all of them.
The government could just choose a week where they decide to contact and charge everyone associated with piracy, and pull down every pirate site. They could show PR-style grace by giving 98% of people a symbolic fine in return for the destruction of all of their digital storage, and give the other 2% brutal prison sentences. Everyone would then be placed on a public blacklist to encourage ISPs to ban them.
Entirely possible, and entirely consistent with centrist values. So I'm no smarter than people who don't pirate.
I must be too old. I do not understand how can they take it away without refund.
If somebody could illuminate me, please?