[amelius]

> That sounds a little authoritarian for many Western countries, I imagine.

If you ever had your account blocked by Apple or Google, you know exactly why a government is the better option. At least you have the rule of law on your side.

Big companies are the authoritarian situation, not the government.

[PowerElectronix]

It deems to me that the rule of law is easier to apply to third parties than to the government that is in charge of administering it

[amelius]

Not if your government properly implements separation of powers, as is the case in most Western countries.

Yes, I'm aware someone is trying to undermine it in the U.S. currently. That doesn't mean that companies are a safe haven suddenly.

[philipallstar]

The actual separation of powers that's a good idea is that between governments and companies.

[PowerElectronix]

Separation of powers is easy to erode and we are seeing that happening in a lot of western countries. Companies are, of course, never going to be trustworthy, but they at least can go out of business if they go full dystopian.

[amelius]

So how many user accounts should Apple or Google wrongfully close until they go out of business? 1000? 10,000? ...

[mothballed]

This reminds me of how all the drug dealers use USPS because it actually requires a warrant to open the package.

If the government has to enforce banking KYC/AML itself they won't be able to hide behind all the third party fuck-fuck games and they'll get sued into oblivion. I'm sure they'll play the normal federal court and sovereign fuck-fuck games but it would be glorious trying to watch them try to enforce the BSA and Patriot act bullshit while not being able to hide behind the auspice it's just a private bank collecting the data.

[WhrRTheBaboons]

in some countries you can vote for your government and hold it accountable.

[philipallstar]

And your vote basically counts for nothing.

[Nerwesta]

Until such governements have already loopholes to circumvent rules of law, I'm as sad as the next guy but the EU technically has that.