5 ms·
I don’t think this is normal or an expected behavior, apologies if my comment gave that impression. My claim is more that ‘Twitter not paying Google Cloud’ and
by fwlr 3y ago
I don’t think this is normal or an expected behavior, apologies if my comment gave that impression. My claim is more that ‘Twitter not paying Google Cloud’ and ‘me not paying my mechanic’ are both situations where the phrase “refusing to pay the bill for services already rendered” is a true and accurate denotative description, but the connotations are significantly different.
For clarity’s sake, I completely agree that it’s a moral imperative to pay your bills on time and in full; what I’m saying here is that I’m not sure that moral imperatives are even the right framework for looking at these interactions between large companies (eg people have morality and ethics, companies have regulations and lawsuits).
- rhaway84773 3y agoThe only difference is if you refuse to pay your mechanic the mechanic can likely do nothing. The billion dollar company can take the other billion dollar company and procure the money owed + damages.
- mwwaters 3y agoIt is sort of the inverse. To be pedantic, mechanics have mechanic's liens which allows them to hold a car forever until they're paid. If it's worth enough for Google, Google could definitely bring full force of judgments. The only thing is the LBO debtors have a UCC lien which may be worth more than what Twitter is worth in a bankruptcy. Twitter does currently have cash and may pay a judgment to prevent an event of default on the big debt. But debtors always have to worry being behind secured debt.
- ttymck 3y agoWell, in this case, I suspect Google can stop providing services, which would significantly hinder Twitter's operations. If your mechanic still had possession of your car, I guess it would be a similarly leveraged situation.
- fwlr 3y agoYeah, the situation is sort of like buying a car from someone, and you don’t like the previous owner’s agreed rate with the mechanic for ongoing maintenance, but you also park the car at the mechanic’s shop and if he stops doing daily maintenance your engine won’t start…
- lotsofpulp 3y agoTwitter v Alphabet is tiny business versus huge business. I do not see why Alphabet would care if Twitter existed or not, so Twitter would not have anything to negotiate with.
- Proven 3y ago[dead]
- lapcat 3y ago> I completely agree that it’s a moral imperative to pay your bills on time and in full; what I’m saying here is that I’m not sure that moral imperatives are even the right framework for looking at these interactions between large companies (eg people have morality and ethics, companies have regulations and lawsuits). Corporations are people, my friend. Any immorality committed by them is due to the immorality of their owners and executives. It's easily possible to be an ethical businessperson; one just has to want to be ethical.
- scarface_74 3y agoAnd the idea that corporations can walk away from their financial responsibilities and individuals shouldn’t is why strategic defaults were so large around 2008.
- hgsgm 3y agoNo one is required to pay a debt. This is a free country. But also no one is required to provide services for a deadbeat with no future payment prospects.
- mwwaters 3y agoThere are various methods of getting and collecting judgments where it will be illegal to not pay, or at least illegal to not cooperate with collections. The easiest mechanism is definitely just refraining from providing more services. But when debts get to two commas, the legal fees will start to be worth it for collection.