You purchase an expensive gadget, a cell phone, a cell watch, an electronic notebook, a modem, AI enabled reading glasses, blah, blah, blah. You remove the item from its fancy box and begin the set-up, move-in process to make it yours and only yours. You manage to satisfy your new gadget and introduce it to your stable of other gadgets. They connect. Life is good.

Months down the road you receive a command alerting you to the importance of updating your device, which by now, you’re quite enamored of. You’re warned that without timely updates bad things will happen to your device, your very life. The device will stumble over it’s own outgrown toes and cease to operate smoothly, hackers will stalk you and steal your identity and use it to break into the Denver Mint.

So, what choice have you but to install said update? But wait, first you must accept the Terms and Conditions. Wait, didn’t you already do all that when you first took the gadget out of the box and powered it on? Yabut.

Terms and Conditions

Important: By using your [Device], you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms:

1. [Device] software licence agreement
2. [Device feature]supplemental terms and conditions
3. Notices from [Device maker].

[Device] software license agreement

Single use license

Please read this software license agreement (“License”) carefully before using your [Device] or downloading the software update accompanying this license. By using your [Device] or downloading a software update, as applicable, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this license. If you do not agree to the terms of this license, do not use the [Device] or download the software update.

If you have recently purchased an [Device] and you do not agree to the terms of the license, you may return the [Device] within the return period to the store or authorized distributor where you obtained it for a refund, subject to [Device]’s return policy found at https://www…

(Followed by endless scrolling of information further describing the above terms & conditions.)

Disagree or Agree (All Caps not my idea!)

So, if you disagree your device will become inoperable within six months. What choice do you have? Why are you given an option for which there really is no workable solution? Ahh, life in the tech zone.