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> Right? A “contract” that only one party needs to abide by is not a contract… it’s an abusive relationship.

I think you're absolutely right morally, but I think you've made a pretty important technical error: they're not abusive because "only one party needs to abide...by the contract", they're abusive because only one party can unilaterally change the deal. The companies that make these "contracts" can actually follow them, but since they can change them at a whim, it only really binds the other party.

Wonder how a court would treat it if users just reply to the email updating the terms of service on our behalf and claiming that they have accepted the terms by not doing anything. (Eg add stringent PII protection, no tracking requirements…)

My guess is that you would probably get kicked off the service if anyone reads your TOS, so make sure to add onerous cancellation charges due to the user in your updated TOS.

In the US at least, the courts would probably side with the big corporation, since doing so seems to be the legal precedent.
I could imagine an AI sidekick that does all this work for you, and always has the last word because it'll never give up.

A place like Meta or Microsoft would tell you to pound sand, but an aligned army of collective-bargaining agents might succeed in removing a specific term from a smaller service.

There are plenty of other abusive aspects besides the fact that they can be changed unilaterally.

What I really don't understand is how it's supposed to be a fundamental part of contract law that there's a "meeting of the minds" where both parties agree to the same thing, and there are these click-through agreements that nobody reads, and everybody knows that nobody reads them, but they're still enforceable. I get why there needs to be a general presumption that you've actually read a contract that you've signed, otherwise you'd be flooded with people saying "actually I didn't read that" to get out of contracts they don't like anymore. But that presumption doesn't make any sense when one party doesn't read the contract, the other party knows nobody reads it, and everybody knows nobody reads it, but we all just sort of pretend.

I particularly love the pretend play of software forcing you to scroll the dozens of pages of contract text all the way to the bottom before the Accept button is enabled. Because obviously the reason I didn't read through the entirety of these eulas before is because I wasn't sure of how scrolling works.
The only way they should be enforceable is if they use that scrolling trick, then quiz you on all the terms (with at least multiple choice), every time the TOS is updated.
Despite sounding absurd I think that would actually work really well. It would make it functionally impossible to include arcane BS without driving off customers while also filtering out people too stupid to be trusted with any sort of online account.
I'm reminded of Mitch Hedberg's bit about getting a receipt when buying a donut. "I don't need a receipt for the donut. I'll just give you the money, and you give me the doughnut. End of transaction!"

Why do we need massive TOS for stuff? I'll just give you the money, and you give me the service. End of transaction!

Presumably because an ongoing service isn't a clean exchange of physical goods. It's more analogous to a gym membership which definitely does come with a contract.

By eating this donut you agree that we are not responsible for any health problems that might result, either directly or indirectly.