May be, but may be not. So I'll take a purely Florida example, in many counties Uber was operating illegally, to the extent they trained drivers how to evade police detection, in some instances they even recruited drivers out of counties that they were operating legally to counties they would be operating illegal (unbeknownst to drivers) resulting in the arrest of drivers (criminal records). In Miami Dade county for example, if you were to have been pulled over you would have gotten two civil tickets resulting in over $2,000 of fines, a third citation converts the charge to criminal charges, Uber would fire driver for not evading authorities effectively enough.
Uber also had a secret program that in part helped them break the law by denying rides to users suspected of working with law enforcement (called Greyball). Another issue is Uber provided a lawyer for drivers (not an actual traffic criminal lawyer, but a Uber lobbiest), in legal terms that is a conflict of interest, plus very few of these fines have been paid after years and last I checked Uber (drivers) still owe millions to the county.
Again I'm not saying this is a boycott I would pursue, but perhaps it's worthy of discussion, and at minimum I could see boycotts getting Uber to take responsibility and pay these fines.
That's not usually a choice, and it's not due to monopoly. Just about every company out there is adding these clauses to their contracts. And consumers have no power to combat them.
You have the power not to enter into the agreement. No one is forcing you to download a song from iTunes or open an account at Wells Fargo. If you don't like the terms, don't enter into the agreement.
Your suggestion is effectively a suggestion that anyone who wants to not implicitly agree to such terms simply doesn't participate in the developed world.
This makes zero sense. It's on par with saying "dude just turn off javascript".
Is the answer to political corruption buying a boat and taking refuge in the pacific ocean, or is actually correcting the problem?
That's not really power. And again, I see absolutely no valid reason why these terms should be allowed. There is zero reason why a company should be able to ask you to sign over your rights. They're rights for a reason. You're supposed to have them.
McCarthism was as much anti-fascist as it was anti-communist, but of course commies would rewrite history to play the victims. Read the actual laws, it never mentions communism without mentioning fascism in the same sentence.
Would you please stop using HN for ideological battle? We ban accounts that do this because it violates HN's mandate. And we've asked you many times before.
I don't want to post about politics either, but people post ideological stuff, ideological replies should be expected, no? When I started using the website it was more focused on what it was meant to be, and I don't think I ever discussed politics then. Then the American elections happened and people started posting politics all the time. Well, political replies ensue. I flag posts that are purely political, I don't just reply to them.
HN has always had a certain amount of political discussion and while you're right that it fluctuates with external conditions, the core amount of it is pretty stable. But there's a difference between substantive discussion and ideological inflammation. Name-calling ("commies") and dismissive swipes ("stop being so defensive") belong to the latter, so please edit such bits out of your comments here.
The principle is simple: avoid flamebait to reduce flamewars.
Quoting the judge, when handing down the death sentences:
I consider your crime worse than murder... I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-Bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.
