[munk-a]

I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that services weren't rendered - even if I'm totally certain they've got some BS in their TOS somewhere that specifically called out that it would be within the bounds of the service offering to take your money and give you only the fake experience of being a tinder user.

[samhw]

To be fair, shadow banning has a legit use besides just taking people's money. It prevents genuine malicious actors from simply creating new accounts whenever they get banned. However, it becomes way more ethically complex when the service in question is a paid service.

[munk-a]

Shadow banning is a legitimate tool when you assume that it is necessary for you to offer your services with the absolute lowest barrier to entry. There are plenty of other very reasonable approaches to prevent malicious actors from simply creating new accounts - the easiest of these is to attach a modest cost to account creation which is a solution that marketers absolutely loathe band thus has been casually discounted. However, it is an exceptionally good solution.

Do you think twitter would be dealing with 10 million twitter bots if they had a five dollar account creation fee? Do you think smurf accounts for harassment would be nearly as widespread if every ban cost the troll $5 of their real money?

[colejohnson66]

We're literally on a site that uses shadow banning. @dang has mentioned quite a few times.

[munk-a]

Yup - I'm well aware - and the barrier to entry for HN is pretty much non-existent. Some features are locked behind karma accumulation but most of the moderation is done manually and the community is small(ish) enough and of a professional bent - meaning that a lot of people know who other folks are IRL. Removing the anonymous factor for a large portion of commenters makes them follow the rules a lot better.

There still are lots of issues with smurf accounts though, again, there's a sort of barrier to entry in that extremely new and low karma accounts can get their comments [dead]'d very trivially.

[mr_toad]

Contracts that are completely one-side are not legally binding. They have to offer you something for your money.

[munk-a]

If I set up a bazaar theme park where patrons would have the privilege of haggling over the price of items and paying the price - but never actually receive the item (as per expectations). I would be amazed if such a theme park would be considered a breach of contract.

Tinder could argue that the shadow banned user is still paying to have the "Tinder Experience"... though, again, I think the difficulty would be arguing that this aligned with service expectations from the customer.

Contracts can't be completely one-sided - they must provide some sort of consideration to each party - but they can be extremely one-sided. Often times if your company is changing their vacation policy or other key employment benefit all the employees will receive a one or five dollar bonus - that bonus is because you're signing on to a contract where you're literally just giving up benefits so there's a legal requirement to give you something in exchange.