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epolanski 2 days ago

I can discriminate you because it's you. I don't like you and I don't want to do business with you. End of story.

It's your problem to prove that it was racially or religiously motivated or something.

It's not a strong statement it's a fact.

You cannot force anybody to do business with you. Not me, can't force my brother, can't force my mother's laundry to have you as client.

Guess what? I can't force other companies to do business with me too! I can't force a lawyer to have me as a client, nor I can force a bank, nor an insurance.

Do you know how many countless "no"s companies I worked in got?

API companies unwilling to have us as clients because too small. Wanting to open the wallet? Not enough if we can't prove we can't ramp it up fast.

What could we do? Nothing.

Stripe or other payment processors can notoriously deny you services without owning you any explanation.

You just can't. Business is about trading and I can't be forced to trade with those I don't want to, nor they can be if they don't want me, for whatever reason (unless discrimination can be proven).

The only businesses that most laws force to offer a service are public utilities and even then, I can guarantee you 100%, that even banks if they don't want you as a client, even if they are among the few businesses that have, they still won't have you and rather drag this through courts and then maliciously comply to the point of effectively being unbanked.

danaris 2 days ago | parent [-]

It seems like you're trying to disprove my point by stating something that's only tangentially related.

Yes, there are situations where a business can refuse to do business with me and there's nothing I can do about it.

There are also situations where a business might refuse to do business with me and I can take them to court and force them to do so—if the reason they refused to transact with me was because I fall into a protected class.

Because of this, it is also true that, if they chose to, legislatures could write new laws that require businesses to do business with everyone with a "g" in their name, or everyone with hazel eyes.

Or they could require businesses in certain classes to allow absolutely anyone to transact.

This is especially true with monopolies and other types of market-dominant companies, which very frequently have to operate under more restrictive conditions than other businesses.

Google isn't an all-powerful entity that no laws can touch, as much as they might like to be. Any time you start thinking "nobody can force a business to" something-or-other, remember that laws and regulations exist, and do very much force businesses to do things they otherwise would not choose to do.