Congress should make it illegal for a public company to shut down apps that see this much usage, unless the employees are quitting. Some users have 12 million followers.
That is the last possible thing we'd want. We already have contract law that covers the case where a customer has paid a provider to provide a service and the service provider stops without delivering. But, in the case of a free service, where there are no commitments, service providers should be free to stop providing services whenever they want.
So you think it should be legal for Facebook to decide to shut down, for example? Why does what the investors want matter more than what the users want?
Because they own it, broadly speaking. I would not be at all averse to the government nationalising Twitter (e.g. after acquiring their assets when they go bankrupt, or by buying out the current shareholders), but while it remains a private or public company it should have the governance process of one.
How could it be illegal for Facebook to shut down? Who would pay for keeping the platform up if Facebook, Inc. doesn't want it or can't afford it anymore?
I guess there could be a government bailout as what happened with General Motors in 2008. That would mean a Chapter 11 scenario at least, and wouldn't help in the situation where Facebook isn't bankrupt but simply wants to focus on something else.
Of course it should be legal for Facebook to shut down. Under what possible sense of human rights would it not be? Let's say that every last employee wanted to quit. Your proposal would require that the government would send the police over to prevent them from leaving and keep them monitoring the servers, etc.
Oh god, can you imagine the premiums on a policy where the probability of payout is "chances a startup fails" and the cost of payout is "enough money to run a failing startup indefinitely"?
