

Ask HN: Should users be allowed to disagree with the ToS? - zaroth

In every program I&#x27;ve used, clicking Disagree meant that the program would refuse to install, or refuse to allow me to proceed.<p>Or, I just assumed that&#x27;s what not accepting the ToS would result in, so I felt like Accepting the ToS wasn&#x27;t really making a choice beyond double-clicking the app was &#x27;making a choice&#x27;.<p>But what if clicking &#x27;decline&#x27; meant that you could actually state a rational reason, and expect some sort of human response?<p>And in the time it took to get that response, you could use the software?
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patio11
You're saying this from a user's perspective, not from the company's
perspective, right? From the company's perspective, a) their lawyers will
advise them that "We sometimes let users use the product without signing a
contract. How do you feel about that?" invites incredible levels of legal
risk, b) the person who monitors the Rejected the TOS inbox is buying
themselves hundreds of hours of work answering very frustrating emails from
the worst customers ever, and c) this choice will not appreciably increase any
metric the company cares about.

You can get a custom TOS written by many software companies, by the way. It
will just cost you a heck of a lot of money. The reason we use "contracts of
adhesion" (the take-it-or-leave-it terms) is because lawyers and compliance
are really freaking expensive, and we can amortize e.g. $10,000 of legal costs
over e.g. 700k clients, but if you want things to be custom-negotiated then
you can expect to pay $10,000 for that.

Customers frequently ask for this for Appointment Reminder, by the way. "I
just have one paragraph I wanted added to the license." Sure, for enterprise
pricing, we can do that. "How much is enterprise pricing?" 20X what you think
it costs. "THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS." I tend to agree, but welcome to paying
professional wages for professional services. If you'd like to not end up
footing any legal bills, you're welcome to buy the $29 plan and click Yes when
prompted.

~~~
glimcat
What's crazy is that enterprise pricing often comes down to, "is that one
paragraph _really_ worth $10,000+ to your business, and potentially much more
than that?" If yes, pay for the enterprise pricing already.

If not...stop worrying about stuff that doesn't make that big a difference to
your business!

Which of course continues to elude many people who would rather waste time
arguing that $29 is too expensive. And this despite the fact that, as a
business expense, $29 is quickly eclipsed by "at least one person in the
business has to care about it at some point in a given month."

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lutusp
> But what if clicking 'decline' meant that you could actually state a
> rational reason, and expect some sort of human response?

Sure, no problem. Just expect to pay twice or three times the original price
of the program, to pay for the administrative staff required to negotiate with
recalcitrant users.

> And in the time it took to get that response, you could use the software?

Never happen. In many cases a program is a collection of modules from
different vendors, all with their own requirements, and none of whom would be
likely to agree to negotiate with individual users about how they can use the
program. And certainly not in advance of forging an agreement -- a contract --
between themselves and the user.

In mass marketing, what you suggest is simply impractical. It's not as though
a program is protected by an ironclad international copyright except for John
Doe of Main Street, U.S.A. who is using the program under protest while his
lengthy and articulate objection winds through a corporate bureaucracy. This
isn't realistic.

It's not about fairness, it's about practicality.

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CharlesMerriam2
There really are two questions hiding here, and most comments are only
answering one.

1\. Could we allow users to modify the TOS for themselves and have a quick
round of TOS negotiation?

Yes, for a large enough price. In most cases, the cost of having anyone even
acknowledge a new customer means that customer is unprofitable. Quicken
(Intuit) was the poster child for recognizing that a customer ever asking for
customer support was unprofitable. Usually, a minor round of contract
negotiation for a $50K product happens, and always happens for contracts
greater than $250K.

2\. Can we ask the user why they balked at the TOS? If there are enough common
reasons for balking we might change the TOS.

Yes, absolutely. Lawyers I work with often complain about products, some aimed
at lawyers, that don't understand the diligence implications of "we may change
these terms without notice". Any lawyer placing client confidential
information on any service with this clause is failing their legal duty to
take reasonable measures to protect attorney-client privileged information.
Having a feedback mechanism might distinguish the set of "didn't sign up
because of your TOS" versus "didn't sign up because product failed".

~~~
CharlesMerriam2
Ah, and let me add some generic TOS advice I recently passed to Experiment.com
when their TOS made me balk.

1\. The check box should have a date. "I agree to your terms of service (last
modified on 10/11/12)" 2\. Break your TOS into sections by usage. For example,
"when growing our site", "when you create an account", "when you post a
comment", "when you make a purchase". 3\. Usually, write your TOS yourself, in
plain language. Then take it your IP attorney and have them mark up what's
wrong. It saves you money and provides a more friendly and readable TOS. It
avoids the lesser attorneys that write '"we","us", and "our" refer to
MegaSoftware while the terms....'

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declan
The other posts by <patio11> and <lutsup> have the right of it. ToSes are
written by lawyers to be read by judges who are lawyers in response to often
spurious class action lawsuits filed by plaintiffs' lawyers.

You don't like ToSes? Demand some serious tort reform. If that happens,
they'll get shorter. But they won't go away.

