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This argument is a poor foundation for legal reasoning. Suppose a guy wants to be a slave? Shouldn’t he have the right to be enslaved? Suppose a guy wants to sell his organs? Shouldn’t he have the right to sell his organs?

Well, no, society is much better off with these things blocked off. There are immensely perverse incentives created.

The main one here is just straight up collusion because there’s not many distributors by nature. It’s dumb as hell that steam takes as much as it does. It’s not helped by clauses about not charging less elsewhere even if the fees are lower which should also be illegal



Some of the things you list are probably illegal because it is challenging to obtain informed consent. Especially where the repercussions are irreversible so it is more about avoiding exploitation rather than imposing a standard of what is acceptable behavior.


It is challenging to obtain informed consent when a company acting as the middleman between you and your customers changes their terms even if it is theoretically possible try and convince your customers to change middlemen.


> Suppose a guy wants to be a slave? Shouldn’t he have the right to be enslaved?

Sure. Why not? Typically society would only be concerned with the servitude becoming involuntary. Thus the right to be enslaved would be expected to also come the right to end enslavement at will. That said, in most jurisdictions marriage dissolution is happy to uphold involuntary servitude so we're not entirely consistent here.

> Suppose a guy wants to sell his organs?

Likewise, society might take issue with it because of its once and done nature. Decide that selling your organs was a bad idea and don't want to do it anymore? Too bad. You are already dead. However, relatedly, things like the sale of blood often is legally accepted as you can stop providing blood at any time if you find the association is no longer working for you.

Aside from the monopolistic considerations, the 30% offer to Apple would normally be acceptable to society because, like blood, one can stop offering it in the future should they no longer find it to be desirable. If it were a contract that states that you will pay 30% and on all future transactions for the rest of your life, even if you stop liking the idea, then society would undoubtedly take issue with it. But that in no way has any relationship to what is being talked about here.

Now, the monopolistic considerations are not typically accepted by society, but, indeed, we have gotten pretty lazy in doing anything about it.


> Why not?

Minimum wage.


Like, the labour law? Volunteering to be a slave isn't labour. In fact, income is not even a concern of society. Look at income data sometime. A not insignificant portion of the population realize negative income. All perfectly legal.




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