4 ms·

Sadly, this reminds me of a facetious story I wrote several years back when Google tried to build a neighborhood in Toronto. It follows a Google fanboy that mov

Sadly, this reminds me of a facetious story I wrote several years back when Google tried to build a neighborhood in Toronto. It follows a Google fanboy that moves in, only to get locked out when something abruptly decides "No, you don't live here anymore." https://theandrewbailey.com/article/203/Insanity-Locked-Out.html https://theandrewbailey.com/article/203/Insanity-Locked-Out.... > But one day, you come back to your apartment. It's locked, and won't accept your authentication method. Since your technocrat landlords despise plain old metal keys for some reason (What are you, a peasant?), they provide one of several alternative methods for you to open doors. (Why can't those cyborgs be more like normal people?) They advise you to never share how or with what you use to login to them. Whatever it is, it's not working. You hope there's not an electrical outage somewhere. > Because you're living in the future, everything is connected to the internet. Like most everything else, your door has a display mounted into it. A message appears, informing you that since you've violated the terms of service, your account has been terminated. You're locked out from all your stuff! There is a customer service robot downstairs, so you try to get some answers from it. Unsurprisingly, the robot is not helpful, not sympathetic, and it won't listen to an unperson.

r0fl 1y ago
This would never work in Toronto. Ontario tenancy laws are so pro-tenant that not even Google could evict a tenant that quickly.
- tonyhart7 1y ago
  "Ontario tenancy laws are so pro-tenant that not even Google could evict a tenant that quickly." that's good then, I bet the rent price is pro tenant too
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    Laws being far too pro tenant don't usually result in lower rents for the tenants, but the contrary. Landlords then prefer to keep their apartments empty instead of risking a bad tenant or have very high bar to entry in order to get an apartment.
    - em-bee 1y ago
      in some places that's illegal
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        Where is what illegal? And how do you prove it? I just let my grandma or close friend live there. There, I found a workaround in 2 seconds. If I can, so can BlackRock and friends and your rental market is still fucked. You can't fix a supply and demand problem with regulations. Why don't people get this?! I've never seen a place with strong tenant protections that has affordable or easy to get rents. See Berlin as one example of many.
        em-bee 1y ago
        Where is what illegal? in some cities in germany it is illegal to leave living quarters vacant for more than 60 or 90 days. in hamburg the local government can take over empty living quarters, renovate them and rent them out without the permission of the owner. I just let my grandma or close friend live there. you can do that if you have only one place to rent out, but not 10. and besides, then your friend is not living somewhere else freeing up another place and they would enjoy the same rent protection too. so in fact you don't win anything. Berlin do you think without the protection berlin would be any better? maybe instead take a look at vienna which has a model that actually works. two thirds of apartments in vienna are subsidized by the government. and when you build something new, again two thirds of that must be subsidized.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >Berlin Plenty of "rented" apartments sitting empty in Berlin. People don't give a fuck about the laws, if there's no enforcement and the market is in the favor of the landlords. >maybe instead take a look at vienna which has a model that actually works. Why is it that people can only name Vienna? Vienna is the exception, not the rule. Hence why it's the only city in Austria doing it and not the whole country. If only there was a switch every city in the world could flip and magically turn into Vienna overnight, but housing in real life doesn't work like that. Some cities have found a balance by deregulating the market, not further regulating it. There's no silver bullet solution that can be applied everywhere like a blanket. That's why Vienna is the only city people can name where regulations have done more good than bad, because it's the exception as in most other cities regulations have made the situation worse, like Berlin. >do you think without the protection berlin would be any better? Have they tried deregulating it for an A/B test to see? Because all people do is just maintain the status quo while complaining it's not working but also psy-opped themselves into thinking that any change of that status quo would be even worse even though they don't have experience with any other model.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    Wow, that's so relevant! It sure doesn't sound like you have an axe to grind!
- theandrewbailey 1y ago
  I did not write it with a specific city in mind, only somewhere in the United States, due to the CFAA invoked towards the end. Then again, Big Tech is often wildly out of touch with both laws and expectations of everyday people outside of Silicon Valley. (Move fast and break things, remember?)

r0fl 1y ago

This would never work in Toronto. Ontario tenancy laws are so pro-tenant that not even Google could evict a tenant that quickly.

tonyhart7 1y ago
"Ontario tenancy laws are so pro-tenant that not even Google could evict a tenant that quickly." that's good then, I bet the rent price is pro tenant too
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Laws being far too pro tenant don't usually result in lower rents for the tenants, but the contrary. Landlords then prefer to keep their apartments empty instead of risking a bad tenant or have very high bar to entry in order to get an apartment.
  - em-bee 1y ago
    in some places that's illegal
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      Where is what illegal? And how do you prove it? I just let my grandma or close friend live there. There, I found a workaround in 2 seconds. If I can, so can BlackRock and friends and your rental market is still fucked. You can't fix a supply and demand problem with regulations. Why don't people get this?! I've never seen a place with strong tenant protections that has affordable or easy to get rents. See Berlin as one example of many.
      - em-bee 1y ago
        Where is what illegal? in some cities in germany it is illegal to leave living quarters vacant for more than 60 or 90 days. in hamburg the local government can take over empty living quarters, renovate them and rent them out without the permission of the owner. I just let my grandma or close friend live there. you can do that if you have only one place to rent out, but not 10. and besides, then your friend is not living somewhere else freeing up another place and they would enjoy the same rent protection too. so in fact you don't win anything. Berlin do you think without the protection berlin would be any better? maybe instead take a look at vienna which has a model that actually works. two thirds of apartments in vienna are subsidized by the government. and when you build something new, again two thirds of that must be subsidized.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >Berlin Plenty of "rented" apartments sitting empty in Berlin. People don't give a fuck about the laws, if there's no enforcement and the market is in the favor of the landlords. >maybe instead take a look at vienna which has a model that actually works. Why is it that people can only name Vienna? Vienna is the exception, not the rule. Hence why it's the only city in Austria doing it and not the whole country. If only there was a switch every city in the world could flip and magically turn into Vienna overnight, but housing in real life doesn't work like that. Some cities have found a balance by deregulating the market, not further regulating it. There's no silver bullet solution that can be applied everywhere like a blanket. That's why Vienna is the only city people can name where regulations have done more good than bad, because it's the exception as in most other cities regulations have made the situation worse, like Berlin. >do you think without the protection berlin would be any better? Have they tried deregulating it for an A/B test to see? Because all people do is just maintain the status quo while complaining it's not working but also psy-opped themselves into thinking that any change of that status quo would be even worse even though they don't have experience with any other model.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Wow, that's so relevant! It sure doesn't sound like you have an axe to grind!
theandrewbailey 1y ago
I did not write it with a specific city in mind, only somewhere in the United States, due to the CFAA invoked towards the end. Then again, Big Tech is often wildly out of touch with both laws and expectations of everyday people outside of Silicon Valley. (Move fast and break things, remember?)