Internet monolithic social services are run by private companies with TOS that no one reads and change, services that barely anyone pays for (except through their data).
We should definitely normalize this so that people see what the internet actually is for the vast majority of people.
> but there's something of a grand social contract that keeps the concept of accounts on websites working
no there's not. this is complete and utter fiction. the things that keep it working are ads and normal users putting their eye in front of them, and the tos to make any silly claims of "social contracts" legally and absolutely moot.
It’s playing stupid to pretend that the theft of a hardly used handle has anything to do with an actual user account. I’m sure if @hac had a presence online, their handle wouldn’t have been sold from under them.
