HN user
This statement is exactly the bollocks that got us here. Just because you have a social media account, or fucking "likes", does not qualify you to speak about pandemics, or vaccinations, or gravity, etc.
They use email...email.
Unencrypted email.
History demonstrates the problem that governments can not be trusted to protect private data once they collect it and they can not be trusted to relinquish any power to monitor citizens once they have it.
A relevant chat on virus tracking apps: https://www.youtube.com/1hKwDdBQN04
Paraphrasing:
In the case of a pandemic, any entity collecting private user tracking data, even if they distribute that data anonymously to alert a user that they have been in close contact with an infected person, can de-anonymise that data.
I do notice other countries who are a week or two ahead of us
It is being reported that South Korea is testing 10k per day. The USA is still having an issue in even delivering test kits where required. That's months ahead, not weeks.
American Prison by Shane Bauer
A good read.
Why is it that almost every company that provides a service with the potential to be in perpetuity, like insurance, always fee creep their customers to the point that you switch because you know you're being fucked compared to what the market "intro rate" for new customers is? You switch only to be back what you were paying before the switch after three months or another time lapse.
When there are few providers in any market, they are colluding to fuck consumers, that are forced into a musical chairs game for little savings.
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Besides a shit UI, the creepy phoning home and ads created many a defector away from MS.
The ISOC-Ethos deal timeline is a conflict of interest story with executive musical chairs:
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/11/isoc-pir-...
It stinks.
Engaging in such a strategy used to be illegal, and was known as predatory pricing.
The Sherman Act and the Clayton Act are no longer enforced in the post Citizens United world, i.e. legal US corruption: kochtopus, dark money, super-pac, 501-c-3 foundations and institutes, etc.
Keep proven bad actors and miscreants, be it government or large tech, out of establishing standards.