See…the “problem” with this is that it’s work.

Its not work to say no. Its work for all the stuff leading up to that. You had to think about how you want your files stored, organized, and backed up. You had to think about how you wanted to access it all and from where. Then you had to set all that stuff up to work.

The vast majority of people don’t do this. Partly for not knowing how to but mostly for not wanting to try to figure out a system that works for them.

They just want things to work when they need them and not think about it at any other time. Gee, I wonder what could ever go wrong with that mentality.

And I don’t want to blame the victim here, because the root of this particular story still doesn’t change.

But there is a little bit of self responsibility that needs to be had. If you give big tech all the controls, you are at their mercy to what they do. But to have any semblance of control yourself, you need to take it. Then you have the power to say no.

I agree that KYC isn’t inherently evil. But the way its been weaponized is.

For instance in the telecommunications space it make total sense for mitigating spam SMS messages and Robocalls. But the carriers all sell your data for profit. They also don’t protect your data properly and are breached all the time. That’s malicious.

So no, I won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and agree its an oversimplification to simply call KYC evil. But I also don’t blame people when all they see is abuse and never a good and proper implementation that isn’t exploitative.

The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is today.