> With "contracts" of adhesion proliferating, and how impossible it has become to exist in the modern world without acceding to them (something as simple as buying a new SSD involves agreeing to one), this problem is getting worse by the day.

The craziest example of this is how all these contracts are appearing in the physical world as well. There are stores that actually have a sign indicating that entering the store constitutes acceptance of contract terms (with a QR code that you presumably can scan with your phone to read the contract). I've also seen public parks with the same thing basically indicating that entry binds you to a legal agreement to not sue the park/follow posted rules/etc.

Look up that case. The victim suffered third-degree burns and required skin grafts. The myth that it’s a ridiculous, over-litigious case is just that: a myth. The coffee was absolutely too hot.

And it was caused by a profit-seeking behavior - an assumption that most, if not all people, would wait to drink the coffee until after they were out of the vehicle, which could be up to X minutes; as such they wouldn't want cold or lukewarm coffee. If most people equated mcdonalds coffee with "bad lukewarm coffee", less people would go to mcdonalds for anything, including coffee. I forget how hot they served the coffee, but it was up around 95C/200F. I know that you have to specifically request "extra hot" at places like SB and CB&TL, otherwise you get coffee hot enough to still be "hot coffee" after adding creamer, i venture 130F or so. AFAIK McDs doesn't offer "extra hot" coffee. Once bitten, and all.

I don't know about the changes made due to this lawsuit, but i reckon they changed their cups to keep ~120F coffee at that temperature longer.

edit: aside: I just realized why i prefer Fahrenheit even though i understand Centigrade. Stuff over 100F is "hotter than i am" It's intuitive in a way that merely remembering 37 is body temp (my dad was born in '37 so that's why i remember) and "anything over 40 is hot" doesn't really roll off the tongue, even though it's roughly as accurate as my ">100F is hot"

There’s a dead reply to your post saying that this occurs because of the insanely litigious nature of the USA. I think it’s worth highlighting — business/property owners are essentially trying to use contract law to route around the fact that the US legal system is broken with regards to civil litigation and throwing out bogus cases. For example, having a private pool in your own back yard can make you liable for someone else’s child breaking in and injuring themselves in your pool because you not having enough barriers to stop them means you allowed the access.

And the litigiousness is downstream of having freakish medical expenses and no universal safety net. An accident can incur costs you could work you whole life to pay off so of course there's a complex adversarial social system built around those consequences.

> the US legal system is broken with regards to civil litigation

And the problem with that has a lot do with corporations. For instance, if you are a pedestrian and get hit by a car and end up in the hospital, in a lot of places in the USA your health insurance will not cover you at all -- you have to sue the driver and get compensated from their auto insurance. The logical method would be for your insurance to cover you and then the health insurance would recover costs through appropriate parties.

It is the same with ridiculous lawsuits like the aunt who sued her sister because the nephew jumped on her and threw out her back. In order to recoup medical costs she had to sue her sister since the sister had homeowner's insurance.

You can't entirely blame the legal system when the corporations are using it to perpetuate the problem for their own gains at the expense of everyone.

It's not either/or - the legal/legislative system is jointly at fault, for letting corporations run amok with generating endless complexity in the form of "terms" that nobody reads, understands, or actually agrees to. The big print of "health insurance" is that it covers medical expenses. From a basic legal perspective it should be impossible for any fine print to walk that back. From a consumer protection perspective, insurances sold to consumers should have to cover complete scopes that fulfill public policy goals.

I sometimes feel like insurance in general is one of the greater "hidden" evils in this world. They prey on your worries and fears, and then they try to do anything possible to weasel out of paying out when a fear becomes a reality.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is some good in it (mostly around risk calculations), but the entire industry feels scummy.

Note: if you think a dead reply is relevant, click on its timestamp and then on "vouch" to make it alive again.

Public parks saying that is kind of strange because the city or town could already set the rules by enacting an ordinance. Presumably they could also delegate that authority to the parks department. I suppose Parks might be doing it because the city council or mayor isn’t enacting the ordinances they want.

Fortunately this is mostly done for defense. A company isn't going to sue you for violating a 12 page contract you walked by, but they might ask you to leave and not come back. They probably won't mention the contract until you sue them for illegal discrimination, at which point they will refer to the contract and argue they were only enforcing their own posted rules and not illegally discriminating.

Contractual law in the modern era regularly and persistently undermines private property rights. Mandatory arbitration clauses make it worse.

What's needed to counter these is for customers to have their own contract of adhesion that simply says if the company is to accept them as a customer, then the company's own contract is null-and-void. This would be backed by a legal team in something like a customer's union or insurance that people would subscribe to for a monthly fee. This contract would be as enforceable (or not) as the company's, leveling the playing field. It would no longer matter what they put in their fine print since you wouldn't need to read it.

If a company doesn't accept the customer's contract or won't let you bypass their own, you walk away -- no sale. Other companies will get your business.

> you walk away -- no sale

which begs the question - what if you need the company's services, and they have no competitors (within reach of you at least)?

The fact of the matter is, the company has a higher bargaining position than the customer.

Yes, that's a great idea! Just hold on while I pay my attorney on retainer $10,000 to draw up and review that contract for enforceability and loopholes. I'm also depositing $50,000 in my "rainy day" savings account to pay another team of attorneys to litigate the contract each time it gets contested or broken. Thanks for the advice!

/s

Well said. This reminds me of my own thoughts:

There are two ways of thinking about what a webpage is:

1) A web page is a billboard

2) A web page is a pamphlet

If a webpage is a billboard, then it is morally wrong for me to paint over those sections of the billboard that I do not like (i.e., using an ad-blocker). This viewpoint is held by those who own webpages (because they want control over it) and by those who cannot change what a webpage looks like (common users).

If a webpage is a pamphlet, then I'm free to cut it up and re-arrange it however I want. Naturally, those with knowledge to cut and re-arrange are more likely to take this view. This viewpoint is more technically correct, a webpage is just a few bits of information handed to me, and to the extent I control my own computer I can cut up those bits and view them however I want.

It's fair to say that Amazon.com contains Amazon's webpage, and that Amazon owns that web page. And yet, I've never once viewed Amazon.com without using an electronic device owned by myself or another non-Amazon entity. Amazon.com doesn't exist on a billboard, it requires the use of electronic devices owned by other people. What rights do the owners of those electronic devices have? Any?

For the case of the billboard, what happens if you viewed them thru glasses (let's suppose it's google glass), and you use software to blot out the parts of the billboard you don't like?

You're not painting over the billboard, just blocking the light reflected off it for yourself. It does not affect others.

To play devil's advocate, what about selling that device? What if it's integrated into an existing smartglasses platform?

What if you only block your competator's ads? What if you replace them with your own? (..does Brave do this?)

What if you block all ads (yours, and your competitors), but in so doing, exploit the inertia of a consumer who is a.) already using your product, and b.) actively sheltered from exposure to the market?

ohh, i got it: just don't block ads for FAANG /s

What device can you buy today with integrated ad blocking enabled by default?

Ad blockers having paying partnerships can be a problem, but something like Ublock Origin does not.

I'm gunna plug AdNauseam. I like it better than uBO or the ilk, because it clicks every ad it blocks. It completely breaks marketing platforms for me, i never get relevant ads when i do see them. According to marketer data, i want to see ads for everything. It also makes some websearch hilarious - i search for "microwave frequency QAM" and it's all ads for kenmore and GE countertop cookers. I avoid search engines that give crap data, because they're trying to get me to buy stuff, i just want search results, thanks.

It also keeps a handy "cost to advertisers" metric you can view. I'm over $40,000 at this point.

Are trying to make a point? Because none of any of this is any worse than ads in the first place? Why would it be ok to influence customers using ads but not by blocking ads?

Antitrust, but I see your point; we ought to put pro-consumerism first.

Sounds simple to me: Are you modifying the web page on the server or on the client? The former should be illegal, the latter legal.

> If a webpage is a billboard, then it is morally wrong for me to paint over those sections of the billboard that I do not like (i.e., using an ad-blocker). This viewpoint is held by those who own webpages (because they want control over it) and by those who cannot change what a webpage looks like (common users).

Why is it morally wrong to paint over billboards?

But even if we accept that unfounded premise, the equivalent of ad blocking would be to hold something in front your eyes blocking the billboard as an ad blocker does not prevent other visitors from seeing the ads but paint does.