Contracts are only as good as the wealth, power, and ability you have to fight in court and ensure they get enforced. Which is why they 1. usually have lopsided boilerplate terms that protect only the powerful party, 2. are usually largely written by the wealthy, powerful corporation, and 3. usually only enforced against the relatively powerless consumer.

In the ideal fantasy world, contracts are supposed to be "meeting of the minds" between parties of equal power and benefitting parties equally. But when I think of "contract" today, I immediately think "weapon used by a company to beat up a consumer".

Seeing how Nintendo and the courts screwed around with the stick drift class action lawsuit (the parents can’t be in the class since their kids use it, yet the parents were the ones bound by the forced arbitration), and how clickwrap EULAs have become largely accepted as fully binding in courts…

100% this

Depending on how many domains he's registered and how much the value of that service for the remaining years is, this may be eligible for small claims.

> when I think of "contract" today, I immediately think "weapon used by a company to beat up a consumer"

This view is unsupported by the facts in all competent jurisdictions. It’s a convenient one, however, for certain people to spread.

One of the first things you learn about in contract law after the elements of contract formation is the idea of unconscionability, but it's often construed by courts in such narrow terms that consumers who are pressured or tricked into handing over their money have little recourse.

https://californialawreview.org/print/unconscionability-as-a...

"We can change these terms at any time, and your agreement is indicated by your continuing to exist. Also if we violate these terms you can't actually take us to court but we'll pay our buddy Arby to decide if you have a valid point"

From a non-professional prospective, one of the problems with unconscionability is that even terms that are blatantly opposite to prevailing law are highly misleading. This further disenfranchises individuals from the legal system, obscuring our rights even further. I'd personally like to see blatant examples of such start getting policed as something akin to giving improper legal advice.

Not a lawyer, but Gandi is based in France, and I don’t think they recognize mandatory arbitration (or choice of law) clauses in consumer contracts there.

Yeah, I was making a general point. I used to use Gandi some time ago. I forget why I drifted away from them. I think I only had one domain there, which I then let lapse rather than renewing. Given what I remember of their rep I'm surprised about this news, but I guess that's the constant churn of "creative" destruction. Enjoy the reasonable vendors you've figured out this year, because next year your own reliance will be an asset to be sold and arbitraged away.

In California at least, a small claim is pretty efficient as long as the claim is more than the modest filing fee. They can't hire an outside lawyer to handle it, either. If they have an inside one they can use that, but anyway.

I've had great success this way against United Airlines, Toyota, and other bigs.

Here in Indiana, in many jurisdictions companies have to hire outside counsel to go to small claims. This means that it can be quite expensive to litigate for businesses against legitimate small claims.

Here in California we have several levels. There are different classes of small claims, there are limited civil claims and then unlimited civil for over $25,000 though some counties have special programs for unlimited claims under $50,000. If you stay in small claims, usually you get an in-house paralegal that just wants it to go away. Over $50,000 you get outside counsel that wants to bill the file.

The sweet spot for companies is the low tens of thousands. At that level, you're disqualified from small claims and it's not really worth an actual lawsuit. It's a very narrow band, though.

OP: Have you enforced a contract through a court system? Would love to hear more about that.