#page462 When you want to provide service, but depend upon a service provider

Brad took his usual exit off the Silicon Freeway. His morning commutes were sometimes filled with traffic, but today was rather pleasant. This would put Brad in a good mood as he drove to his company. Yes, his company - he founded it. A typical 21st century virtual company, Brad's firm provided an app that allowed its users to access specialized content. Typical of today's service offerings, the users didn't actually own the app, or any of the content that they accessed via the app. But the users found the service to be valuable, and kept on downloading the app. Brad still had to work out the whole revenue part of the equation, but his backers seemed to be happy.

Brad turned down a side street to get to his office building - and was surprised to find a gaping hole where his office used to be.

Within a minute, he was on the cell phone to his landlord.

"Where's my office?" Brad shouted.

The landlord was silent.

"C'mon. Where's my office?"

"Sir," replied the landlord, "that was not YOUR office. That is OUR office, and it is no longer available."

"But I have lease papers! That's my office, and you had better get it back!"

"And where are those lease papers?" asked the landlord.

There was a pause. "In my office."

"And we have a duplicate copy here," replied the landlord, "and if you consult page 462 of the terms of service agreement, you have acknowledged that your company did not own the building in question, and that we had the right to revoke access to that building at any time."

"But that's unfair! You can't just take something away from people with no notice!"

The landlord calmly replied. "Perhaps you should have thought of that BEFORE you removed the flying pigs movie from your app. I really liked that movie."

(Image source: Wikimedia)