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If this model of "theft of service" is legally enforceable, then significant swaths of this industry are engaging in false advertising and possibly full-on frau

by advael 2y ago

If this model of "theft of service" is legally enforceable, then significant swaths of this industry are engaging in false advertising and possibly full-on fraud by not making this agreement they're entering into clear to customers prior to their purchase of the device From an ethical perspective, you will never convince me to feel bad about any "theft" of this kind, and this kind of dilution of concepts like "theft" and "crime" is likely responsible for the emotional valence of those terms reading a lot less significantly negative to people

bitwize 2y ago
I'm not saying that you should feel bad about it. What I am saying is that the manufacturers won't feel bad about fighting you on this issue, and coming up with ways to force you to see the advertisements they want you to see, and turn over the data they want on you. It's a principle I'll call Kellner's Law: If a company makes a product or service available free or at a discount by involving advertisers, from the company's perspective that creates an implicit contractual obligation on the customer's part to see the ads; and any attempt to take advantage of the freebie/discount whilst avoiding the ads will be considered a form of theft, legitimizing any technical or legal means at the company's disposal to force customers to see the ads, or else to withdraw service from those who try to avoid them. Kellner's Law explains a lot of corporate behaviors in this space, including crackdowns by YouTube and other sites on Web-based ad blockers. I named it for Jamie Kellner, a television executive who when TiVo (which famously allowed skipping ads in television programs recorded to the device) came out, said "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots" and that skipping ads with a device like TiVo was "actually stealing programming".
- advael 2y ago
  Kellner's law. I like it. It's an excellent illustration of the cowardice and hostility toward customers that comes from being in the subscription-twiddling business model If Kellner wanted to make a deal with cable subscribers, why didn't he advertise cable that way? "If you buy our package and agree to watch ads when they come on in order to support our monetization model, you can watch over a hundred channels!" But he didn't do that, of course. Instead, when his business model clashed with reality, he blamed the customers for violating an imaginary contract they never signed. Just because execs want to imagine violations of their assumptions as crimes doesn't mean that they actually are, and we should be using every meager lever of power we have access to to prevent governments from making laws to appease people like him, because every time a law like that is made, more people's rights are made subject to the arbitrary retroactive demands of delusional businessmen

by advael 2y ago

bitwize 2y ago

I'm not saying that you should feel bad about it. What I am saying is that the manufacturers won't feel bad about fighting you on this issue, and coming up with ways to force you to see the advertisements they want you to see, and turn over the data they want on you. It's a principle I'll call Kellner's Law: If a company makes a product or service available free or at a discount by involving advertisers, from the company's perspective that creates an implicit contractual obligation on the customer's part to see the ads; and any attempt to take advantage of the freebie/discount whilst avoiding the ads will be considered a form of theft, legitimizing any technical or legal means at the company's disposal to force customers to see the ads, or else to withdraw service from those who try to avoid them. Kellner's Law explains a lot of corporate behaviors in this space, including crackdowns by YouTube and other sites on Web-based ad blockers. I named it for Jamie Kellner, a television executive who when TiVo (which famously allowed skipping ads in television programs recorded to the device) came out, said "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots" and that skipping ads with a device like TiVo was "actually stealing programming".

advael 2y ago
Kellner's law. I like it. It's an excellent illustration of the cowardice and hostility toward customers that comes from being in the subscription-twiddling business model If Kellner wanted to make a deal with cable subscribers, why didn't he advertise cable that way? "If you buy our package and agree to watch ads when they come on in order to support our monetization model, you can watch over a hundred channels!" But he didn't do that, of course. Instead, when his business model clashed with reality, he blamed the customers for violating an imaginary contract they never signed. Just because execs want to imagine violations of their assumptions as crimes doesn't mean that they actually are, and we should be using every meager lever of power we have access to to prevent governments from making laws to appease people like him, because every time a law like that is made, more people's rights are made subject to the arbitrary retroactive demands of delusional businessmen