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.
But that clearly isn't happening. You have never had more access to high-end typefaces than you do today. What people are mad about is the licensing attached to --- literally --- the Hermès of type design. To get higher-level than the targets of these complaints you have to get into bespoke design.
This came up earlier in the thread, and I kept someone else on the hook on this: I honestly think that it would be a good thing for the world if font licensing got more onerous, not less. Type design is a very difficult field to make a living in, and the world could use more of it. The social cost of making high-end type more expensive is negative, not positive.
> What people are mad about is the licensing attached to --- literally --- the Hermès of type design.
Hmm, okay. If that's true then OP is just wrong.
The problem is this argument wasn't clear from your initial comment. You claimed that there were plenty of excellent free options, while they claimed that the market had generally gone to very onerous pricing. Both of those can be true at the same time.
But if most of the market hasn't done that, and they're only looking at the top, then okay they're wrong.
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.
> 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!