Do you know what your mortgage papers, a smartphone license agreement, and a devil’s contract with fine print from a bank have in common? Exactly: it’s impossible to read and understand them without sacrificing a couple of years of your life and your nerve cells. Let’s be honest: this is no accident. This is the theft of your time and your right to a conscious choice!
Today, an ordinary contract with a bank looks like the Joker’s villainous plan: a thousand pages, pretentious language, “asterisks,” and fine print. They convince you that “this is how it has to be,” and then they act surprised: “Didn’t you read on page 843 that the rate is floating and can triple?” Remember the 2008 mortgage crisis? Millions of people signed contracts with “floating rates.” Most didn’t even imagine what that meant. And the result? When the refinancing rate skyrocketed, families ended up on the street, and the global economy plummeted into a severe depression.
And do you know what the scariest part is? According to informal polls, a significant number of people think that if a mortgage rate is 20%, it means the apartment will be 20% more expensive in total, not 20% more every year. If such elementary things are unclear to many, how can we expect them to tackle a thousand-page contract that even specialists struggle to read?
Other examples of unfair contracts:
– Insurance where almost nothing is covered because page 58 mentions “exclusions.”
– A software license that gives a company the right to track your activities on the device.
– A mobile plan with “unlimited internet” where the speed drops to almost zero after the first 10 GB.
– Employment contracts that forbid you from working in the same field after resignation so that you don’t create unnecessary competition.
Let’s call things by their real names: this is not a voluntary agreement. This is fraud disguised in legal language. It’s the same as if you were sold a car that explodes on its own after a year, simply because somewhere on page 287 it was written in fine print: “Warning, may explode!”.
I propose a simple rule: any contract longer than 4,000 words or written in language that an average person wouldn’t understand on the first try is null and void. It’s simple. If you can’t fit it into a couple of clear screens, it means you want to hide something. Hid it? The contract doesn’t work. This applies to everyone—even banks, even mortgages. Imagine a bank decides to sneakily insert a clause about raising the rate on page 999? Congratulations, the apartment is yours; you don’t need to pay more. It’s their own fault—they wanted to fleece a person of their time and nerves, now they pay the price of justice!
By the way, even now in many countries with an independent judicial system, there is a chance to create a precedent for the nullity of a contract, even a mortgage. One could refer specifically to the theft of time and fraud, as the bank consciously provided a contract that an ordinary person without specialized education could not understand, despite their best efforts.
An idea for the future: create a community of auditors who issue a “simplicity badge” (analogous to an SSL certificate). If you see such a badge, you can be sure the contract is clear and contains no hidden traps.
All of this would be a return to the essence of voluntary exchange: people must understand what they are agreeing to. If a person spends half their life trying to understand what they’ve agreed to, it’s no longer a free market, but legalized racketeering. The world would only change for the better after this. Banks and companies would begin to compete for the clarity and transparency of their contracts. The market would be cleared of parasites who feed on incomprehensible papers. And finally, people would reclaim the right to a conscious choice, and therefore, their freedom!
