3 ms·

Maybe you can on AWS, I don't know, but it's also not the point. The purpose of our service was primarily for web hosting, and it ran on VMs, so one person cons

by vlunkr 6y ago

Maybe you can on AWS, I don't know, but it's also not the point. The purpose of our service was primarily for web hosting, and it ran on VMs, so one person consuming all the CPU time would negatively impact other customers. It's not that we morally objected, it's that it wasn't the business we wanted to provide, and it was against the TOS. Which is the same conclusion the judge came to in this Parler case.

umvi 6y ago
> so one person consuming all the CPU time would negatively impact other customers So charge them more or limit their compute? If you are in the business of renting out compute resources then you need to spell out what the terms are. It's like renting out your car and then getting mad when someone drives it 2000 miles in one weekend. You need to spell out: "Yep, it's $50 a day, and you get 100 miles per day. Every mile after that is $1. If you want to drive the car further it's $100 per day" not "It's $50 per day unless we don't like what you are doing then we'll revoke the car arbitrarily" > It's not that we morally objected, it's that it wasn't the business we wanted to provide, and it was against the TOS Ok and what was the clause in the ToS they violated? I sure hope it was more specific than the vague arbitrary clause Amazon used to axe Parler.
- vlunkr 6y ago
  Sure we could have done that, but allow me to use a dumb analogy here. I could go to the grocery store and try to buy the entire stock of milk. They would probably refuse to sell them to me, and would be within their rights to do so, even though they didn't put a sign specifically saying I couldn't do that. I could complain that they should just keep more milk in stock, but they won't, because I'm not the customer they want to sell to. Businesses (in the US) can refuse service to anyone for essentially any reason besides discrimination. Why should hosting a server for someone be any different. Most services are going to put something generic in their TOS to accomplish this, because they can't enumerate or foresee every way that people might do something undesirable.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > Why should hosting a server for someone be any different Because we are starting to see that infrastructure level of the internet should be more like a public utility if we want to preserve fundamental freedoms. I would hope you would be outraged if T-Mobile listened in on cellular calls and terminated customers who said politically incorrect things even though the customer is using their service and they can do as they please with their customers as long as it isn't discrimination. You would also be outraged if the electric company terminated your power because you were powering a "stop the steal" neon sign in your window. It's time we start treating compute as a utility-like resource just like electricity, water, cellular data, etc.

by vlunkr 6y ago

umvi 6y ago

> so one person consuming all the CPU time would negatively impact other customers So charge them more or limit their compute? If you are in the business of renting out compute resources then you need to spell out what the terms are. It's like renting out your car and then getting mad when someone drives it 2000 miles in one weekend. You need to spell out: "Yep, it's $50 a day, and you get 100 miles per day. Every mile after that is $1. If you want to drive the car further it's $100 per day" not "It's $50 per day unless we don't like what you are doing then we'll revoke the car arbitrarily" > It's not that we morally objected, it's that it wasn't the business we wanted to provide, and it was against the TOS Ok and what was the clause in the ToS they violated? I sure hope it was more specific than the vague arbitrary clause Amazon used to axe Parler.

vlunkr 6y ago
Sure we could have done that, but allow me to use a dumb analogy here. I could go to the grocery store and try to buy the entire stock of milk. They would probably refuse to sell them to me, and would be within their rights to do so, even though they didn't put a sign specifically saying I couldn't do that. I could complain that they should just keep more milk in stock, but they won't, because I'm not the customer they want to sell to. Businesses (in the US) can refuse service to anyone for essentially any reason besides discrimination. Why should hosting a server for someone be any different. Most services are going to put something generic in their TOS to accomplish this, because they can't enumerate or foresee every way that people might do something undesirable.
- umvi 6y ago
  > Why should hosting a server for someone be any different Because we are starting to see that infrastructure level of the internet should be more like a public utility if we want to preserve fundamental freedoms. I would hope you would be outraged if T-Mobile listened in on cellular calls and terminated customers who said politically incorrect things even though the customer is using their service and they can do as they please with their customers as long as it isn't discrimination. You would also be outraged if the electric company terminated your power because you were powering a "stop the steal" neon sign in your window. It's time we start treating compute as a utility-like resource just like electricity, water, cellular data, etc.