[VS1999]

Whenever someone invokes the "terms of service" I just get annoyed. I live in the US where we have absolutely no consumer rights and every company can put anything they want in the ToS or EULA, and if it violates the law they aren't punished (such as illegal warranty restrictions). Most EULAs even have a clause that says something like "if any part of this contract is illegal, ignore it and the rest is still enforced". If companies can put anything they want into it and aren't punished for breaking the law, it's 100% up to consumers to ignore the ToS and ignore the EULA as much as possible.

And if you're really paying for a limited license to use their property, they should have to call it that. Amazon calls it a "store" where you "buy" the books. They'd make a lot less sales if the "buy now with 1 click" button said "purchase a limited license to access this book for some period of time".

[freedomben]

I agree with your points here, but this seems like a two-wrongs-make-a-right type of argument. Basically, companies (like Amazon) don't have to honor their agreements, so neither do I.

I agree that's a fair standard, but it does feel a little ... suboptimal to say "I can and will lie because I expect that they are lying."

[plorg]

It actually does not sound like that argument - that sounds like an argument you are making up.

The argument is, "I have no meaningful choice in the terms that I agree to, hence my agreement to those terms cannot be freely given. But I do have choice in whether to follow those terms and a means by which to operate outside of them. So I will ignore the terms that I find unnecessarily restrictive (subject to assessment of risk) and that may be the only actual influence I can exert in the situation."

[codegladiator]

> because I expect that they are lying

because I /KNOW/ that they are lying

[freedomben]

Can you cite an example of one of the lies that you know about?

If not, then you can't KNOW they are lying any more than all the religious people who claim they KNOW that their church is true (which they all can't be, since they have contradictory beliefs).

Unless you've read The terms for the thing you are agreeing to, and have identified contradictions (lies) for which you have hard evidence to the contrary, you don't KNOW. This must be done for every company that you agree to, not just a single one. If we know that person a killed someone because we have it on camera and proved it in court, that obviously does not mean that an unrelated person b is also guilty of murder.

Short of that, you don't KNOW, you just expect.

Apologies, I didn't intend to lecture on this, it just touched a nerve I have with the overuse of the word know, and the negative effect that has had on science. Also maddening to be debating religion and have the person claim to know something that they clearly don't, such as that God exists and/or that he loves us, etc. The correct word they need is "believe"