Look, obviously Instagram's servers, infrastructure and software are their own. I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor the point. They are in fact a company, serving users, and need those users' trust to do what they want to do. I am totally fine with Instagram or any free service making money and experimenting with ways of doing that. I have no issues with contextual advertising or trying to sell me something. The issue people complaining about is one of trust and a feeling/fear of broken faith. (e.g. "Hey, use our cool site for photo sharing! Oh by the way, now all your photos are belong to us.")
> I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor the point.
No, it's not. It's the dirty little secret of "free" cloud services: you're using somebody else's resources to store your own (intellectual) property, relying on vague TOS clauses that can change from one minute to the next. This is exactly why this brouhaha took off: all of a sudden people "felt" those clauses were now abusive; they realised they were relying purely on Instagram's benevolence, and they "felt" that benevolence was now gone.
This is the case for any cloud service, including Dropbox, iCloud etc; there are probably a few exceptions (I'd expect Salesforce to have tighter TOS), but the overwhelming majority of consumer-oriented cloud services are in the same boat. Last I checked, Dropbox reserved the right to go through your files -- for troubleshooting purposes only, no doubt, but again we have to take their word for it. How many times did you actually read those TOS? For what I know, they might now state that Dropbox can sell your data to China.
The hard truth is that the garage is not yours and it will never be yours; in the best scenario, you are renting it with a tight contract , but in most cases you just had a chat with the owner once and he sorta promised not to resell your boxes full of comic books. Sooner or later you'll find a less honourable owner, and shit will fly.
So what are you saying: don't trust or use any cloud services whatsoever? Or only use ones you pay for? I think that's taking it to another extreme. There is obviously an equitable balance between free services and the level of privacy/control one sacrifices. It's up to each individual user to decide. I think an important component of that is how the company communicates with its users, and in this case, the track record of its parent company on similar matters.
So, I don't take an "all or nothing" view, but I genuinely understand where you're coming from. I just don't think it is a "dirty secret" (not with this crowd anyway)
Edit - I'd like to add or underscore that I agree with what you're saying that ToS can change at anytime, etc. My emphasis is on how companies treat and talk to their users. I don't think all cloud services should be painted with same brush, they should be judged on their own merits and how they do business generally. A Facebook-owned Instagram already made people nervous. This change in ToS brought back memories of other unpleasant changes.
2nd Edit - Munroe's comic ends with the idea that it's useless to complain or drop the service. Clearly it isn't because Instagram responded and reverted back to their original ToS. They need users too. They acknowledged that they heard them. The joke misses or ignores that fact.
I agree that the main difference at the moment is how companies manage the conversation, and I'm not a maximalist -- I use tons of cloud services myself -- I just don't think the issues they raise can forever be swept under the carpet. Unless the industry gets its shit together, more and more companies will abuse their position and try to "pull a Facebook" or "pull an Instagram", leading to an inevitable backlash at the legislative level (certainly from Europe, if not the US).
In the meantime, users should be educated on the risks of cloud platforms as much as their benefits, and in this sense I think the strip is very useful.
Comments
Look, obviously Instagram's servers, infrastructure and software are their own. I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor the point. They are in fact a company, serving users, and need those users' trust to do what they want to do. I am totally fine with Instagram or any free service making money and experimenting with ways of doing that. I have no issues with contextual advertising or trying to sell me something. The issue people complaining about is one of trust and a feeling/fear of broken faith. (e.g. "Hey, use our cool site for photo sharing! Oh by the way, now all your photos are belong to us.")
> I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor the point.
No, it's not. It's the dirty little secret of "free" cloud services: you're using somebody else's resources to store your own (intellectual) property, relying on vague TOS clauses that can change from one minute to the next. This is exactly why this brouhaha took off: all of a sudden people "felt" those clauses were now abusive; they realised they were relying purely on Instagram's benevolence, and they "felt" that benevolence was now gone.
This is the case for any cloud service, including Dropbox, iCloud etc; there are probably a few exceptions (I'd expect Salesforce to have tighter TOS), but the overwhelming majority of consumer-oriented cloud services are in the same boat. Last I checked, Dropbox reserved the right to go through your files -- for troubleshooting purposes only, no doubt, but again we have to take their word for it. How many times did you actually read those TOS? For what I know, they might now state that Dropbox can sell your data to China.
The hard truth is that the garage is not yours and it will never be yours; in the best scenario, you are renting it with a tight contract , but in most cases you just had a chat with the owner once and he sorta promised not to resell your boxes full of comic books. Sooner or later you'll find a less honourable owner, and shit will fly.
So what are you saying: don't trust or use any cloud services whatsoever? Or only use ones you pay for? I think that's taking it to another extreme. There is obviously an equitable balance between free services and the level of privacy/control one sacrifices. It's up to each individual user to decide. I think an important component of that is how the company communicates with its users, and in this case, the track record of its parent company on similar matters.
So, I don't take an "all or nothing" view, but I genuinely understand where you're coming from. I just don't think it is a "dirty secret" (not with this crowd anyway)
Edit - I'd like to add or underscore that I agree with what you're saying that ToS can change at anytime, etc. My emphasis is on how companies treat and talk to their users. I don't think all cloud services should be painted with same brush, they should be judged on their own merits and how they do business generally. A Facebook-owned Instagram already made people nervous. This change in ToS brought back memories of other unpleasant changes.
2nd Edit - Munroe's comic ends with the idea that it's useless to complain or drop the service. Clearly it isn't because Instagram responded and reverted back to their original ToS. They need users too. They acknowledged that they heard them. The joke misses or ignores that fact.
I agree that the main difference at the moment is how companies manage the conversation, and I'm not a maximalist -- I use tons of cloud services myself -- I just don't think the issues they raise can forever be swept under the carpet. Unless the industry gets its shit together, more and more companies will abuse their position and try to "pull a Facebook" or "pull an Instagram", leading to an inevitable backlash at the legislative level (certainly from Europe, if not the US).
In the meantime, users should be educated on the risks of cloud platforms as much as their benefits, and in this sense I think the strip is very useful.