[uproarchat]

I am that person that reads every line of the contracts I sign, including ToS and PP. I appreciate that I can tell who it rubs the wrong way, because it tells me who will shake my hand without intending to honor their word. It changed the way I write these documents as well, the last ToS and PP I wrote can each be read in a single breath.

[anitil]

How do you manage the situation socially? I had a very important document with a very expensive professional booked for about 10 minutes. No way I could actually read it in that time - what would you do?

[uproarchat]

"I appreciate the opportunity to work on this with you, I need to give this the time that it deserves to make sure I can honor the commitments in the contract."

Always maintain your integrity, a big part of that is honoring your word. Integrity is the only thing you're born with in this life, and if you're lucky you take it with you on the way out. Any person worth getting into contracts with will appreciate the value in that.

[ambicapter]

Not GP, but probably ask them to send me the contract ahead of time, and explain that you need time to read it.

[AlexanderHanff]

That simply isn't possible - you might like to think you read everything but research has shown that simply reading the terms and conditions of the top 100 websites amounts to a colossal amount of time (if you look at Prof. Lorie Cranor's research on this from around 2008, even back then the cost to the US in lost time was to the tune of trillions of dollars - now, they are much much worse than they were 18 years ago.

The terms and conditions for Tetris on Android were longer than the entire works of Tolkien when combined.

So yes, it would be nice to read all of these things, but we simply do not have the time available to do so.

[account42]

He did say that he read every contract he signs not that he reads every contract some company thinks applies to him without any legal basis whatsoever. You also don't have to use to top 100 websites.

[noxvilleza]

It would be nice if ToS were more like open source licenses in which people commonly standardize or template them (or parts of them). That way there's large chunks which are reduced, and a few diffs for what's unusual. I think the problem with this is the fact that sections are not independent.