If I set up a bazaar theme park where patrons would have the privilege of haggling over the price of items and paying the price - but never actually receive the item (as per expectations). I would be amazed if such a theme park would be considered a breach of contract.
Tinder could argue that the shadow banned user is still paying to have the "Tinder Experience"... though, again, I think the difficulty would be arguing that this aligned with service expectations from the customer.
Contracts can't be completely one-sided - they must provide some sort of consideration to each party - but they can be extremely one-sided. Often times if your company is changing their vacation policy or other key employment benefit all the employees will receive a one or five dollar bonus - that bonus is because you're signing on to a contract where you're literally just giving up benefits so there's a legal requirement to give you something in exchange.
A lot of the instincts around one-sided or surprising contract terms come from consumer protection laws in some countries. Not only is that comparatively absent from the US legal climate, it often doesn't apply to business to business relationships (such as between Unity and game development companies) even where it is present for consumers.
It's a contract that the company has agreed to -- if they violate that contract, the consequences apply. Or should they be able to violate contracts negotiated between private parties?
Breach of contract is not illegal. It's a tort, and you might be able to seek recompense through the courts, but I don't know how they would determine damages.
Contracts are what they are, but they don't preclude discussions like "if we honor this as-is, it leads to a situation where we have no incentive to value you as a customer".
I'll accept your argument as an upper bound on the issue. I don't agree fully with "breach of contract" in such cases, but it's less unreasonable than making it a criminal offense.
But wouldn't it be a breach of contract and not a tort? There may be other torts involved, but I was only considering the issue you brought up with breaking their contract terms.
It should count as breach of contract if it's against a provision in the contract. If there's a provision for it in the contract, the next question is if it is valid or not (e.g. compensation for late flights is defined by laws in many places, so airlines can't just not offer it), which is where a law (or a different interpretation of existing law) restricting this would start.
It’s unfair that companies, who have extremely high power in the relationship, can load their contracts up with one-sided and often unenforceable stuff. Employees, who are the party with low power, must accept the terms or GTFO. Then the onus is on them to spend their time and money fighting the legal battle to invalidate these unenforceable bits.
Wouldn’t it be fairer if the party with all the power, and who dictates the content of the contract, must convince a judge that it’s enforceable before a defendant has to lift a finger or shell out money?
Currently contracts seem to be nothing more than one-sided weapons that powerful companies use to get vulnerable people to do things that they otherwise wouldn’t and can’t afford to fight. Let’s not pretend that more than a small fraction of employees out there actually get to meaningfully alter the contracts under which they work.
Tinder could argue that the shadow banned user is still paying to have the "Tinder Experience"... though, again, I think the difficulty would be arguing that this aligned with service expectations from the customer.
Contracts can't be completely one-sided - they must provide some sort of consideration to each party - but they can be extremely one-sided. Often times if your company is changing their vacation policy or other key employment benefit all the employees will receive a one or five dollar bonus - that bonus is because you're signing on to a contract where you're literally just giving up benefits so there's a legal requirement to give you something in exchange.
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