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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Sure but contracts which are take-it-or-leave-it and aren't negotiations with concessions on both sides can't really be said to be willing parties. This is why shrinkwrap contracts and t&c are unenforceable in lots of places. What made this contract any different from the other hundred bullshit contracts we "agree" to every day?

There's a reason the state regulates certain contracts to be literally boilerplate (home purchase) and you have to specifically negotiate any deviations. Unless there was reason to believe this wasn't the same car purchase contract you would get with any other car then clauses like this should get thrown out on the same grounds you can't put, "and also you agree to turn over your life savings" in a contract. Nobody reads them, no one is expected to read them.

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> Sure but contracts which are take-it-or-leave-it and aren't negotiations with concessions on both sides can't really be said to be willing parties.

Why not? If I list my house for 80% or 90% of the realistic market value with a set of conditions that are “absolutely no negotiations; take it or leave it”, I’m a willing seller and the purchaser is a willing buyer, right?

Thats a contract with no tail consequence.

"Buy my house but only if you operate a crack den, and sell drugs to my friends" would not only be un-enforcable, it would be unconscionable.

To be less ridiculous, "buy my house but you can't sub-divide it despite local planning laws" would be unfortunate.

You appear to be arguing "they consented" -which is nearly always true in a contract between equals, but rarely true when there is an asymmetry of need.

I’m arguing nothing more than the topic I quoted and responded to. No negotiation/no concession does not inherently mean the parties are not willing participants.

Simple, because there are thousands of similar homes that buyers can look at as alternatives.

Whereas for things sold by major corporations, there often are not.

There's nothing else even remotely similar to a Cybertruck anywhere else.

When consumers can shop offerings from hundreds of different competing companies then there isn't really a power imbalance. If you don't like the terms with one, you can probably find terms you do like with another.

When there are only 5 manufacturers in the market, or 3, or just 1, that's where the power imbalance happens. Companies get to dictate terms because consumers have no real alternative.

An F150 is more than an little similar to a Cybertruck.

In a weird way, when it comes to home purchases you actually have to negotiate no negotiations. So in real life you can't actually accomplish what you want.

And if you want to go further and opt out of the standard home purchase contract entirely you get lawyers involved on both sides so you're again negotiating.

The implicit assumption you're making is that offering the house at 80/90% of market value is a concession but that's not how that works. You can't do the negotiation for the other side, say take it or leave it, and say that counts. You can't negotiate against an imagined person in advance

If you offer it take it or leave it you're at the whim of the judge saying, "that's absurd no reasonable person would assume that was in a home purchase contract."

> Sure but contracts which are take-it-or-leave-it and aren't negotiations with concessions on both sides can't really be said to be willing parties.

As far as I'm concerned any ToS that doesn't have an edit feature that lets the user put their own terms in and send it back to the company to review (in a timely fashion) shouldn't be legally enforceable.

Otherwise there's no meeting of minds going on here.

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