[cringepirate]

This is incorrect. You can almost always take your business elsewhere. It depends whether you think it is worth it, depending on how hard it makes the rest of your life.

If people really cared (as much as they claim) you will make alternatives work for you.

[tomc1985]

If you've a following on instagram and you decide to leave for whatever reason, you can't take your followers with you. Maybe some will jump over if you link them to other platforms

If you've an iOS app and you've run afoul of the app store, you can't take those iOS users with you without asking them to switch to another platform or asking them to use a web app instead (both of which are forbidden, I think)

If you're on gmail and your account gets suspended, you can't set up a magical redirect that sends all your mail to another address. Can you even use Google Takeout?

These are all extremely popular platforms with strong lock-in effects through various circumstances.

In too many cases, the switching costs are so high as to be destructive. Yes you can technically switch but the price is dire. That doesn't count in my book.

[GoblinSlayer]

People, who still insist on developing programs for Apple out of greed are in collusion with Apple to strengthen their monopoly and should serve proportional share of Apple's sentence if it's ever to be judged for its anticompetitive business. They can't possibly be ignorant about it today.

[scarface74]

How dare people go where 50% of the market is because they care about silly stuff like food and shelter.

[wolco]

The entire point of instagram for businesses is to move followers from instagram to your own controlled platform.

Not sure why using google as your main email makes sense with so many others offering email.

You can take the iOS customer off of iOS to a different platform through ingame awareness.. one you control

[cringepirate]

> If you've a following on instagram and you decide to leave for whatever reason, you can't take your followers with you. Maybe some will jump over if you link them to other platforms

You should diversify your social media presence then and let your followers know "look if I am not here one day this is my website or you can find me here".

> If you've an iOS app and you've run afoul of the app store, you can't take those iOS users with you without asking them to switch to another platform or asking them to use a web app instead (both of which are forbidden, I think)

This is probably the only valid scenario presented due to there being only two players realistically in the mobile phone space.

> If you're on gmail and your account gets suspended, you can't set up a magical redirect that sends all your mail to another address. Can you even use Google Takeout?

This actually happened to a friend of mine (he got locked out of his account). He ended up learning from the experience and owns his own domain and uses one of the other email providers.

The government might fix these issues in another 10 years ... maybe? You are actually validating my point about people being ignorant of the risks of using services that can suspend you account for any reason at any time. Don't use them, or if you must then mitigate any potential fallout from losing access to that service.

People that have been being censored by large tech companies have already started doing this.

> In too many cases, the switching costs are so high as to be destructive. Yes you can technically switch but the price is dire. That doesn't count in my book.

As we are arbitrarily deciding what counts, I don't think the social media accounts or the gmail issue is a big deal.

They are easily mitigated against as long as you aren't ignorant. Being a smart consumer, smart user will protect you much better than anything else. Which proves my point.

[tomc1985]

> You are actually validating my point about people being ignorant of the risks of using services that can suspend you account for any reason at any time. Don't use them, or if you must then mitigate any potential fallout from losing access to that service.

I love to trot out the "don't be stupid" argument too, and it never works. If "don't be stupid" was at all an effective mantra, tech would look a whole lot different. But people being stupid is what sustains these practices, and it is what provides the lock-in effect that I'm describing. Plus, someone will argue that it discriminates against unintelligent or mentally handicapped folks (which it does), or underprivileged folks and minorities (which is debatable). And then someone else will argue that people should be able to drive their car without having to know how to repair them (that's what services are for!) or that their specific choice in make/model/whatever shouldn't have a future tragic effect on their life. And those arguments are supported by law and government agencies backing them up.

[cringepirate]

Making excuses for ignorance is simply promoting learned helplessness.

Yes I appreciate there are edge cases such as the mentally handicapped. However realistic I am talking about the majority of the population which are capable of looking after themselves.

Again this much like another reply I received. You are making it an all or nothing scenario.

Realistically it will be a combination of regulation and people starting to get wise to what these companies are doing. At the moment the regulators don’t have the power or aren’t up to speed. So instead of waiting for the shit to hit the fan you can protect yourself and start mitigating risk.

I really don’t like this attitude of people that you cannot try to protect yourself.

[tomc1985]

When it comes to technology the majority of the population is not capable of looking after themselves. And it won't be this way for a very, very long time.

[cringepirate]

Well it will go on longer if people are encouraged by those that are capable to stay ignorant.

Also Rome wasn’t built in a day.