I wish this was the case. My experience is similar to OP.
I’m sure that some people made some mistake. I accept that. But I can’t accept handing out life bans for mistakes made. That’s not a town square should work. Sure we could use a different advertising platform but there aren’t that many.
I a digital forensics investigator who owns a small business. I was also banned for life from advertising. Not told why but the only thing I’ve changed is that I started teaching a social media evidence course at university - then almost immediately banned.
Facebook/Meta don’t accept messages from people banned for life. The NSW small business ombudsman won’t touch the case because they only will resolve cases with companies that have Australian contact details.
My history on Facebook is pretty boring. Family photos and news about my advocacy for blind and low vision people and the occasional work post. Pretty mundane stuff.
This article is useful because I thought I was the only one.
I’m not sure about my next steps. I am probably required to notify the uni but I also don’t want to create trouble for them.
Xero doesn’t let you export or backup your data. One Kiwi company does auto Xero backup (Control-C) but their interface is super clunky - I know they are trying to fix their stuff though but the backup service provided is for use in emergency only.
Each time I see an outage at Xero, and they are getting more and more lately, my heart stops.
I fear one day I’ll wake up and my business won’t work.
Still - for SME’s, the alternatives are sparse.
I wish they offered offline and backup.
I wish they had a competitor with similar pricing and features that offered backup.
I agree. If we were to make roads equally available to all regardless of means, I should be able to travel to 100% of Australia, not the small fraction served by PT and P2P.
What I object to is that the tax for blind road users is several orders of magnitude higher than driver-users. And that comes with the caveat you can access maybe 5% of areas in Australia by PT and P2P.
At least my kids can use schools without an orders-of-magnitude higher tax. They can only use parks accessible by PT and P2P (which - in Australia - is a very small fraction).
So I get we all should pay for shared resources. But its less fair to ask someone who isn't permitted to access these shared resources an orders-of-magnitude higher tax to access a tiny fraction of those resources.
I think that road users should pay to use the road. Fuel excise, or electricity surcharge tax or whatever, is a tiny fraction of the subsidy that road users get from regular tax payers.
I'm a blind Aussie taxpayer.
Consider my tax situation. If I take an Uber to my local pub, that's about A$10. Of that $10:
$0.90 in Goods and Services Tax
$1 to the taxi compensation scheme
That's 19% tax - or $1.90/$10.
In Australia, public transport and P2P services get to a tiny fraction of all available road destinations. It easier (and sometimes cheaper) for someone like me to get from Sydney to Singapore than to Sydney to Kangaroo Valley (about 350km from Sydney).
So, for my 19% tax rate to get to the pub, the equivalent journey someone who can drive a car on their own may pay $0.25 in fuel excise duty.
They can pay the road users tax. They already get enough of a subsidy from me.
I would like this better if it included ID that blind and low vision people use to substitute for licenses. I don’t like that this plan seems to lock out proof of identity services for people with disability by design.
I know this is a real problem because I can hardly see. I don’t have a license. It causes continuous problems in real life.
I live in Oz. You are supposed to be able to use a “Photo Card” to prove identity the same as a drivers license. It takes the same amount of proof to get a “Photo Card” from the government as a drivers license. They look the same as a drivers license, even the same holograms, but a different colour.
But I have continuous trouble dealing with banks, insurers, government (crazy!), post office, telephone companies, internet companies. I bought a passport mostly because it easier to carry that around.
If we get an app that only accepts drivers license and not the official photo card equivalent it means we’ll get told by contact centres to drive (!) to our nearest branch of whatever and bring a folder full of ID and hope the drone will accept it.
I’m sure that some people made some mistake. I accept that. But I can’t accept handing out life bans for mistakes made. That’s not a town square should work. Sure we could use a different advertising platform but there aren’t that many.