alt Hacker News> If you found a way to circumvent their setup process, you wouldn’t be using the device as designed or intended.
Liability in civil court is not as simple as you posit. Severability and judge discretion are but 2 ways that immediately can invalidate this line of argument. The cause of actual damages are almost always scrutinized, meaning the company would have to prove that the legal agreement could somehow have prevented the damage. Courtrooms are often mischaracterized as following robotic rules and precedence to ill-effect, as if there aren't people in the courtroom using good judgement. This is largely because those cases are the ones most publicized, not because it's the norm.
That’s orthogonal to the comment I’m responding to. The parent commenter was claiming that because they left a device in airplane mode when they accepted the ToS, it doesn’t count. Like it’s a loophole that allows one to accept it but not have it count.
The actual terms of the ToS will always be evaluated in court. You can’t, however, go into court and argue that the ToS doesn’t apply because you put a fake name into the app and left it in airplane mode.
You also wouldn’t get anywhere if you bought their device but used it with your own reverse engineered app or something, as the app is considered part of the product.