RE: Your personal Google+ account is going away on April 2, 2019
Unless you are a celebrity, it takes much effort and time (usually years) to build up an organic following on social media sites.
A large following in hundreds of thousands or in millions means a lot for a business. I would consider it some kind of property that you can use to generate income for your business besides it being a medium of exchange and influence.
When a social media site like google + shuts down, they are effectively, in one fell swoop, burning down all these properties that have been built by entrepreneurs assiduously, over many years.
Do these entrepreneurs have a remedy against google+ for the losses they would incur, arising from such unilateral decision? This is a legal question for which, I believe, there is no precedent yet. We can only hope that someone would take up the mantle to test the ground.
p.s. Here is a list of the most followed people on google+.
http://www.recommendedusers.com/most-followed-people/
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. But as soon as you accept their ToS you accepted being deleted. Otherwise somebody would sue them already.
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@boyanpro, it is not as simple as that.
In the UK they have legislation to protect consumers against unfair contract terms. Most consumer contracts between a large corporation and an ordinary consumer, which are drafted in favor of the large corporations and have no provision for negotiations of terms ("take it or leave it" kind of contracts) would fall under such legislation. Unfair terms favoring such large corporations are set aside and rendered invalid.
In countries where there are no such legislation, the courts have been known to set aside such terms, although the absence of legislation does give rise to some uncertainty until a court decision is made.
In summary, if the contract is entered into in circumstances where the negotiations were not made at arms length (i.e. the parties were not of the same bargaining position), then the courts could render the unfair terms favoring the party in a superior position invalid, either based on existing legislation or based on its inherent jurisdiction.
OK. That's good point. But unfortunately for now they aren't hold accountable for any of these shutdowns. Furthermore seams to be that they will try to make G-Suite clients pay for Google+ expenses.
They are raising G-Suite fee for 30%. Which is ridiculous. It is going from 4€ to 5.2€ per user per month. Imagine how that affects companies using G-Suite for several thousand users. They even advertise that new features in G-Suite will be related to Google+.
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That's why I commented earlier that, "We can only hope that someone would take up the mantle to test the ground."
It would be interesting to see if the people affected by this decision take up class action suits against google in jurisdictions where class actions are allowed.
Love the conversation you're guys having here.
Amazing piece @boyanpro
Love the conversation you're guys having here.
Amazing piece @devann
Dear @devann
This is such an interesting approach. Wow. I didn't think about it ever the way you do. Thx for sharing your view.
Yours
Piotr