← Back to context

Comment by tptacek

19 hours ago

If Hermès did forbid me from carrying my (hypothetical) wallet more than 3 times a week, I simply would not buy that wallet. It would not become a moral crusade.

But they'd deserve to be mocked in public. Complaining about something is usually not an attempt to make a moral crusade.

  • Why? Everybody can just not buy the wallet if they care about this term of use. Who's being harmed?

    This isn't nitpicking. At some point you're really effectively just arguing that there should be a ceiling on what you can charge for a typeface. That's not an argument that respects the art and craft of type design; it's one that privileges convenience.

    • > Why? Everybody can just not buy the wallet if they care about this term of use. Who's being harmed?

      Either because it's ridiculous and fun to laugh at, or to scare other companies off the idea, or both.

      It being a luxury product that people can avoid is not a reason to keep my mouth shut.

      > At some point you're really effectively just arguing that there should be a ceiling on what you can charge for a typeface. That's not an argument that respects the art and craft of type design; it's one that privileges convenience.

      Okay, to switch back to typefaces, I don't get the impression they're complaining about the high end, I get the impression they're complaining about the average.

      And if an entire class of product suddenly becomes luxury with onerous terms... that sucks! Do complain! It was working fine before!

      2 replies →

    • No, not a ceiling, but rather less baroque terms of use / price structure, I'd say. It's like licensing software per CPU core, and / or with a separate license with separate conditions for every of the two dozen components of software. These have been ridiculed because people who end up working with that get bothered and want to vent. Should not be a moral crusade though; a crusade to "liberate" someone else's property, as opposed to creating and maintaining something free, has a different name.