I alluded to this on Mastodon recently [1], and I strongly agree. Here's a copy of the toots: --- Thought that just crossed my mind: what if - a law that mand

I alluded to this on Mastodon recently [1], and I strongly agree. Here's a copy of the toots: --- Thought that just crossed my mind: what if - a law that mandated any service accessed over the web must not interfere with any attempts to develop or use third party clients? Not a software license. A law, with actual teeth and massive fines for companies (it's always companies) violating it. Discord banning folks for using Ripcord? Yeah that'll be $(insert massive fine here) per user banned. Your credit union? Sure, write your own mobile app for it. Like GDPR, but a hundred steps further. To give it proper teeth, the fines for willful infringement should be basically company-ending events, because fuck abusing users. No $1000 slap on the wrist. Nah, "up to 5% of company net profit for the year of occurrence, or $X minimum amount, whichever is higher" (to handle unprofitable VC-backed entities) or something truly fear-inducing. And no, I can't currently think of anything that should be excepted from this. If you think you can write a better GUI for the SaaS version of TurboTax and not land yourself with tax fines, go for it, dude. The law should allow you to do that, too. [1]: https://merveilles.town/@klardotsh/110749363058611919 https://merveilles.town/@klardotsh/110749363058611919