> One problem with your argument (from a political perspective) is that it undermines the entire system of mandatory disclosures (for drug warnings, investor relations, real estate, etc.).
A key factor here should be the complexity of the agreement compared to the value of the transaction.
If you're buying a house, you're laying out at least six figures and can be reasonably expected to read the fine print or hire somebody to do it for you, even if it takes multiple hours or several hundred dollars. If you're buying a $1 app or using a free service, expecting the same thing is facially absurd.
Meanwhile if you're buying a $5 bottle of drain cleaner, it's ridiculous to expect someone to read 20 pages, but 20 words is not so unreasonable.
This also bodes ill for "we may update this agreement at any time" because that's imposing the burden of re-reading the agreement every time you change it, which is pretty unreasonable for anything where the other party isn't paying you (or getting paid by you) hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.
If the danger is too complicated for people to reasonably understand in the amount of time they ordinarily spend trying to understand it, you already have a bigger problem. If the danger isn't that complicated and can be easily explained, you don't actually have this problem.
Well what is reasonable for a $5 bottle of ibuprofen? How about:
"Misuse of this product is dangerous and may cause death. Advil is not responsible for damages caused by misuse. Read and follow instructions on back of bottle"
That's a bit wordy but it indicates who is responsible (you) and what the gravity of the situation is (possible death). With that established, it means the onus is on the user to do more reading.
IANAL but I would like to belive something like that would satisfy all parties.
I don't necessarily disagree, but the way you framed it is a little too close to "Please read our privacy policy for more information", which doesn't get us anywhere. It works for ibuprofen because those instructions on the back are really quite short, so expecting customers to read them is more than reasonable IMO.
A key factor here should be the complexity of the agreement compared to the value of the transaction.
If you're buying a house, you're laying out at least six figures and can be reasonably expected to read the fine print or hire somebody to do it for you, even if it takes multiple hours or several hundred dollars. If you're buying a $1 app or using a free service, expecting the same thing is facially absurd.
Meanwhile if you're buying a $5 bottle of drain cleaner, it's ridiculous to expect someone to read 20 pages, but 20 words is not so unreasonable.
This also bodes ill for "we may update this agreement at any time" because that's imposing the burden of re-reading the agreement every time you change it, which is pretty unreasonable for anything where the other party isn't paying you (or getting paid by you) hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.