[car_analogy]

This is equivalent to a newspaper forbidding you from clipping out the articles, or a car manufacturer forbidding you from looking under the hood.

It's preposterous that we allow any kind of legitimacy to 'contracts' such as these, that seek to at once control us and keep us ignorant in relation to items and services that fill our homes.

But instead of explicitly forbidding such clauses, we're actually writing them into law with anti-circumvention and reverse-engineering (i.e. examining how stuff works) restrictions. It's obscene.

[willis936]

Any illegal clause of a contract can't be enforced. However, it can be litigated and I don't want to be litigated by a tech company.

That's the real sword of damocles: not the illegal contracts but of the combination of concentrated wealth and its ability to selectively enforce its own rules.

[marcosdumay]

As an end user, let them come. Suing me over some illegal clause on an illegible contract with all of the evidence of not being open to evaluation before I entered it is a sure losing proposition.

But if I was thinking about buying something from them as a company, I would take that line very seriously.

[noir_lord]

> It's preposterous that we allow any kind of legitimacy to 'contracts' such as these

Big chunk of US GDP depends on IP, that IP is disproportionately in the hands of big corporations, big corporations can legally bribe, sorry lobby US politicians, we get anti-consumer legislation exported world-wide as a result.

[indigochill]

Good news! There's a Twitter alternative that's open source and practically requires you to look under the hood: Mastodon.

In the general case I agree with your sentiment and this is why I believe open source and self hosted alternatives are important, because they are the escape hatch from all the problems inherent in corporate platforms.

[darkerside]

The word you are looking for is analogous, not equivalent.

[car_analogy]

No, equivalent. It may relate to a different, more intangible object (website vs. car), but it strips away the same rights.

[darkerside]

In what sense is it equivalent? Legal? Ethical? Moral?

[car_analogy]

Equivalent in the rights it takes away. 'Rights' in a moral, not legal sense - they may not be codified in any law. In the same way one's right to free speech is said to be curtailed, regardless of if their specific legal system recognizes such a right.