Thank you for this thoughtful and illuminating perspective. I'll make sure that my octogenarian life-long liberal grandparents hear about this. It's long past time for people above 75 to rise up and topple one of the most entrenched and well-defended authoritarian regimes on the planet. Maybe they can solve climate change while they're at it.
On a more serious note - this is about the opposition being denied foreign infrastructure. This translates into less effective protests, drives people into censored and controlled social media ponds, and makes disseminating thing like videos of war crimes this much harder.
I would understand if Namecheap were to block accounts related to Russian businesses. But this is virtue signalling at its worst - this decision makes situation worse, while making the people who made feel better.
I am serious: this is all the important bits regarding the news, anything else is superfluous. There is no sugarcoating this.
That your grandparents have no agency is not the fault of Ukrainians. I totally understand their mindset, having lived in Poland when the iron curtain was still in place. It sucks to be in your - and their - place, but it sucks even more to be sitting in Kyiv right now waiting for the bombs to fall.
> On a more serious note - this is about the opposition being denied foreign infrastructure. This translates into less effective protests, drives people into censored and controlled social media ponds, and makes disseminating thing like videos of war crimes this much harder.
Agreed, which is exactly why I argued upthread, long ago for Namecheap to block businesses but to leave private individuals' accounts in tact as long as possible.
Keep in mind though: any service in the West you currently rely on will likely go at some point in the near future, and some may not give you any warning at all.
> But this is virtue signalling at its worst
No, it is not virtue signalling, they are pretty much based in Ukraine.
Bro idk if you know what its like living in an autocratic regime. But try going to a black lives matters event and wait to be teargassed by the cops, then realize its WAY more blatant in russia.
The example that comes to mind is Solidarity, but with the kind of popularity that Putin inexplicably still has that may not be a viable option, and it would have to be very carefully planned and coordinated, going off half-cocked will just get lots of people shot in the streets, setting this up will take a lot of time. Alternatively, some of the remaining bigshots may decide to throw Putin under the bus (or, preferably, a tank).
