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underliptonyesterday at 8:49 PM1 replyview on HN

A couple of years ago, Steam made everyone accept a new ToS that required going through courts for disputes rather than arbitration. This was because some lawyers had realized that they could zerg rush arbitration with claims that Valve was obligated to deal with individually, and pay the fees to do so (IIRC). This effectively meant that the lawyers could extract settlements from Valve, because the alternative was massive losses from those arbitration fees, whether or not the claims had merit.

All this to say that there's a weakness in arbitration agreements as they currently exist which means that companies incur a cost when forcing consumers to use arbitration (as they should). Waiting for the first company to be instantly bankrupted by some event related to this.


Replies

zargontoday at 4:57 AM

That is just an example of why AI arbitration will happen though. Lower cost.