Disclaimer: The following rant isn't targeted at that user specifically. I've seen them around and we've agreed on a number of other things. I'm disappointed that we don't on this topic.

"It's not a genuine archiving effort if you don't have permission" 😂😂

I'm anti-IP. It doesn't matter to me whether, according to US IP law, fic writers do have some copyright over their texts. I think it's asinine to be part of a community which is protected in this one way simply by the grace of corporations who recognised it benefits them to allow us to thrive, and yet insist on playing IP landlord. The point of fandom is not to highlight what the law says. The point is that we're a culture based on creating and sharing art, and valuing shared art over "intellectual property". If IP was ever something we were supposed to give a fuck about, we wouldn't be writing fanfiction, loopholes be damned. We've only ever cared insofar as making sure we don't get sued.

People keep saying, "Why can't you just respect authors' boundaries and consent?" And putting aside the gross misuse of therapy speak, I find it frustrating that they refuse to consider whether those particular wishes are actually reasonable. Sure, a request doesn't have to be reasonable just because it's a request—you don't have to have a reason for someone to stop making an annoying noise beyond "it's annoying"—but why is it such a problem if people share your free works with each other? Why do you seek such control over digital copies?

Like... Gege wrote Yuuta and Maki to be a canon couple, but you might write Nobamaki fanfiction regardless. Did you get Gege's permission before doing that? Because if permission isn't required to write the fic, why is it suddenly required to copy it? What takes precedence: the law, or the author's wishes? You might say Gege's wishes were about his canon pairing, not fanfic—but that's exactly the point. Fandom routinely overrides authorial intent without asking permission, yet nobody calls that a violation. And plenty of people opposed to fic-sharing aren't asking just for their own work to be removed from the pool, they're opposed to the pool's very existence.

The closest you have to the capitalist argument of "lost sales" is "lost engagement". And I wonder—do you genuinely think that someone who didn't leave a comment under your fic after reading it on another website would have left a comment if they'd read it on AO3? Like the corporations' claims about pirates and their buying habits, your assessment is questionable. And as with piracy, limiting access is not going to alone solve the problem of declining reader engagement.

"I'm fine with AO3 hosting it, I just don't want it copied elsewhere" isn't a sentiment I can get behind, either. Uploading to AO3 is putting a digital file into a system built on copying, downloading, and sharing—that's what an archive is. You can't accept the hosting while demanding that the file never leave the host.

If you don't want people to share your work, that's fine. But that will necessarily mean not uploading it to an open, digital archive. It means not participating in a community that's precisely about intrinsic pleasure over a capitalist need for profit and capital. If you want the benefits of fandom—i.e., engagement and clout—you must put aside your antisocial instincts.

Finally: I do think concerns about Google Drive's complete lack of user privacy are valid. I think more people should look into end-to-end encrypted alternatives (e.g. Proton Drive, Filen).