[nickff]

Most long contracts are a reaction to 'failure to warn' lawsuits where plaintiffs (successfully) argued that they should have been notified of something. The problem is that when you add up all those 'somethings', you get absurdly long documents.

[idle_zealot]

In effect it seems that people are still not being warned. The legal fiction that they are is exactly the insanity that needs to be thrown out.

[nickff]

I agree that these extensive disclaimers and contracts are not an effective way to communicate information, but dispensing with them will require either a better way to disclaim many (relatively unimportant) risks, or a change to product (and service) liability law, reducing failure-to-warn legal risk.