> Nearly the entire American tech industry has been super heavily selected for people who undervalue the legal language with crazy implications buried everywhere.

A lot of people in IT seem to think law and contracts are in a sense mathematical. They aren't; they're more like a high school book report - to be interpreted, as objectively as possible, but definitely also establishing the intent behind the letters.

Particularly contracts - no, you can't trick your way into things in most cases. "Surprising" clauses are invalid in most legal systems, in particular if one party to the contract is a layperson.

I sometimes wonder how much blame should be placed at the feet of cartoons which teach viewers that invisibly-small print is legally binding, and that any term is enforceable.

I mean, it's not like most people have any kind of curriculum to fix those early assumptions.