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I only hope is that as bullshit like this becomes more and more prominent, people will become more and more educated in what is acceptable and what is not (sinc

I only hope is that as bullshit like this becomes more and more prominent, people will become more and more educated in what is acceptable and what is not (since it will bite them more and more). Eventually, public opinion would shift into more and more negative outlook on corporations who practice such things. Offenders' influence would then decline and people will become smarter, everyone wins.

userbinator 12y ago
and people will become smarter Unfortunately, my impression is the opposite - people are slowly being dissuaded from discovering these restrictions by the promises of convenience, and when they do run into them, they're faced with heavy rhetoric to the effect of "it's for your security" so they (reluctantly) accept it. Incidents like this appear isolated and are downplayed by the majority, who will continue to use the very services that restrict them, purely out of convenience. Corporations are diverting people's actions of sharing information into their own channels so they can exert more control over them - witness all the "share on Twitter/Facebook/etc" buttons appearing everywhere (I personally block them, but I know they exist); they sure are convenient to use, and as a side-effect of their use, it reduces the amount of people who will "manually" and directly share with others (and thus know more about the transfer of information themselves.) The same is happening with other types of media too, as evidenced by all the efforts to hide the filesystem of devices from users, since one of the most open ways to share data with someone is to give them a copy of a file. They are even trying to discourage linking to a resource, with browser vendors thinking of hiding URLs or parts of them. Ultimately, they are pushing for a world in which no one owns their (tightly locked-down) computing devices or has any knowledge of how they work (except for a few "specialists"), and all communication between individuals happens via some corporate intermediary. This makes it easier to censor and manipulate the users (probably to squeeze $$$ out of them), which is what the whole idea is about.
- gear54rus 12y ago
  A comment so accurate it makes me sad :C There isn't much one can do though as favoring convenience over not-so-obvious benefits of (abstract, for them) freedom seems to stem from the very human nature... I used to think RMS' ideas were a bit far fetched, but with each such revelation that comes to light in the form of post on some relatively unknown blog those ideas seem more and more appropriate.

userbinator 12y ago

and people will become smarter Unfortunately, my impression is the opposite - people are slowly being dissuaded from discovering these restrictions by the promises of convenience, and when they do run into them, they're faced with heavy rhetoric to the effect of "it's for your security" so they (reluctantly) accept it. Incidents like this appear isolated and are downplayed by the majority, who will continue to use the very services that restrict them, purely out of convenience. Corporations are diverting people's actions of sharing information into their own channels so they can exert more control over them - witness all the "share on Twitter/Facebook/etc" buttons appearing everywhere (I personally block them, but I know they exist); they sure are convenient to use, and as a side-effect of their use, it reduces the amount of people who will "manually" and directly share with others (and thus know more about the transfer of information themselves.) The same is happening with other types of media too, as evidenced by all the efforts to hide the filesystem of devices from users, since one of the most open ways to share data with someone is to give them a copy of a file. They are even trying to discourage linking to a resource, with browser vendors thinking of hiding URLs or parts of them. Ultimately, they are pushing for a world in which no one owns their (tightly locked-down) computing devices or has any knowledge of how they work (except for a few "specialists"), and all communication between individuals happens via some corporate intermediary. This makes it easier to censor and manipulate the users (probably to squeeze $$$ out of them), which is what the whole idea is about.

gear54rus 12y ago
A comment so accurate it makes me sad :C There isn't much one can do though as favoring convenience over not-so-obvious benefits of (abstract, for them) freedom seems to stem from the very human nature... I used to think RMS' ideas were a bit far fetched, but with each such revelation that comes to light in the form of post on some relatively unknown blog those ideas seem more and more appropriate.