alt Hacker NewsEdit: I have misread some of the comments here, he didn't lose access to his whole account and data just the antigravity part. I should've done my due diligence, get out of bed and spent more time thinking instead of emotionally reacting. Guess the rage machine got me as well. Damn. I think this thread might be hijacked by ai bros.
The main point still stands, google is part of a duopoly that runs the world. You can't be a functional member of society without them. They're like a public utility and plays too big of a role in people's life to take decisions based on unknown internal policies. They're long overdue for a government intervention or for splitting up.
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Best way to deal with this is take them to small claims court. If enough people do this, They have to send representations that will cost them enough to stop such nonsense.
It's absurd and shameful. If only for the fact of banning individual consumers paying $249/month without warning, completely rendering them unable to use the service they paid for, including through the official app.
Just the 1000th instance of disgusting behavior by US big tech.
Oh now this is the new pivot?
>Can you begin to imagine losing access to all your emails, accounts, every photo you ever took? Because what they didn't like how you used one unrelated product tied to your account?
What are you talking about? He didn't lose access to Google, in fact, he is using his Google account to make the post. He lost access to the service they are claiming that he is misusing.
This is a serious problem. I think the only durable solution is legislation that requires these companies to provide access to your data, or at least a way to export or transfer it, even after an account ban. Otherwise, if they delete your account for any reason, even for a legitimate policy violation, they can effectively cut you off from information you have built up and stored over years. In Apple’s case, an account lock can even leave a device unusable.
I have read several blog posts from people describing how frustrating it is to have an account locked. Because Google, like many large companies, provides little to no effective support, the only thing that seemed to work was getting a post to trend on Hacker News so that someone inside Google noticed and intervened to resolve it.
This is why companies get broken up.
Usually they'll try to hide the monopoly/tying to avoid this. What's interesting is that they don't seem to be trying.
It's not the same thing but it does remind me of [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....