this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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We Overhauled Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy - Another VC funded bait and switch (zed.dev)
submitted 6 hours ago by theherk@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Following in the footsteps of Hashicorp, Hudson, etc. Zed has chosen to cash in the good will of its now substantial user base and start going to full corporate enshittification. Among other things like minimum age nonsense, they have also added binding mandatory opt-OUT arbitration.

I find such agreements very troubling, because it gives up public funded dispute resolution for private which nearly unanimously benefits larger entities, it lowers transparency to near zero, and eliminates the abilities to act as a class and to appeal. But I worry most will just accept it, as is the norm.

You can however opt out by emailing arbitration-opt-out@zed.dev with full legal name, the email address associated with your account, and a statement that you want to opt out.

I'll just consider my days of advocating for Zed as an interesting new editor over and go back to Neovim bliss.

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[–] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 20 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

For those that don't know what any of that means (like me 5 minutes ago):

Arbitration is an alternative to going to court. Instead of suing each other in front of a judge, both parties agree to have a neutral third party (an arbitrator) settle disputes privately. It's usually faster and cheaper than traditional litigation.

The class action waiver means you give up the right to join with other users in a class action lawsuit against Zed. So if many users had the same grievance, they couldn't band together, each person would have to resolve their dispute individually.

Why tf are they afraid of being sued or class actioned against?

I haven't really used zed much and I'll delete my account and uninstall, just to show them that this sucks.

[–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Could be fuck ups from AI, i saw several openings from them about integrated AI

[–] entwine@programming.dev 3 points 3 hours ago

Fun fact: these forced arbitration clauses can backfire spectacularly

Any lawyer who wants to make a shit load of money fucking over a company engaging in these kinds of abusive business practices should look at what Bucher law firm did to Valve.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 hours ago

Instead of suing each other in front of a judge, both parties agree to have a neutral third party (an arbitrator) settle disputes privately

The “neutral” third party is chosen by the company. So… yeah.

[–] g5pw@feddit.it 17 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Oh, and I just head about the fork that reached 1.0 recently. Not that I use it or Zed in the first place, but I’m glad people have options to escape enshittification!

[–] entwine@programming.dev 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I paid ~$80 or something for Sublime Text 4 a few years ago, and I can't remember the last time it had an update, yet I am an extremely happy customer.

A text editor should only focus on stability and performance, and Sublime does exactly that, and is why I am "stuck" with it.

But Gram looks like it's going the same direction, and it's open source! I really hope development on it picks up so I can finally gain peace of mind by having a FOSS code editor that can actually compete with Sublime.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 points 2 hours ago

I know it's not as fancy as other IDEs, but it is still my go to for anything that I plan to perfect within a week or two. It's also my go to for txt files. Anyone that is savvy enough for notepad++ could get a lot of use out of it in my opinion.

[–] galoisghost@aussie.zone 9 points 6 hours ago

I tried Zed a little and it didn’t really click with me but after reading the project mission I’m going to give this fork a try:

I think AI integration in a code editor is a bad feature. AI makes me angry.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

WTF? According to the project page on github, at least some of it is AGPL. It can't have restrictive "terms of service" on top of that!

[–] Flipper@feddit.org 13 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, yes it can. The license only changes what other people than the owner may do. It's the rights and conditions they give you.

For most projects that doesn't matter because there are several owners of the code base. Every single person who contributed can enforce these rights on their part. However, to contribute to Zed you have to sign a cla. Signing away all rights and ownership of your contribution. So they have all the rights and can do whatever they want.

They could close source everything tomorrow without any consequence and sell you a feature you made yourself.

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 6 points 4 hours ago

That's all true except for that last paragraph - the rights and conditions they gave you to existing code are irrevocable, so you'll continue to be able to use the last open source version indefinitely, including the feature you made yourself. It's just that they can release new versions and not publish the source code of their additions, even if that new release also includes a feature you made yourself.

(I'm not a lawyer, but still.)

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

They have some functionality for which you can login, and only at login are you asked to agree to the terms. Presumably you can just use the offline functionality of the editor just fine without agreeing to anything other than the AGPL.

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

This is perfectly fine to me. The only features that require an account are AI and chat, two features which make perfect sense to have an account for.

I personally don't even use these features. In fact, I have this in my zed settings.

{
    "disable_ai": true,
    "title_bar": {
        "show_sign_in": false
    }
}
[–] theherk@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I suspect they draw a distinction between using their built binary and logged in services like collaboration from the editor code itself, but iinal.

[–] TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

laughs in Emacs

It is unfortunate though, since Zed did seem to have potential. But I can't say I'm surprised given their focus on vibe coding instead if making a good editor.

[–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Emacs is hard to refer to new users (unless they have the passion and time for these things), but I feel lucky I learned it while I had free time.

I feel like projects like these are the only ones that won't betray us.

[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I find such agreements very troubling, because it gives up public funded dispute resolution for private which nearly unanimously benefits larger entities

For starters, check if that term is valid in your country's legislation. Where I am for example, no contract with a foreign entity can legally retract your rights of legal representation, so any ToS you agree to that have this clause would be automatically considered invalid and you can happily eg.: start a class action lawsuit (with other users in your country).

(tbf, in my country ToS are not even considered legal contracts in the first place so we're somewhat better than that, but still I do get that other countries are ~*Worse*~)

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

Agreed and I have domicile in a country that provides improved, though not perfect, protections. But it still tempers my views of the organization.

[–] HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 hours ago

Looks like I'm sticking with good old nvim for another dozen or so years

[–] sorter_plainview@lemmy.today 4 points 5 hours ago

Well then there is not even a single reason for switching from VS Code for a normal dev. When I tried it in Debian with a normal laptop, it continuously caused freezing, because it kinda throttled the integrated graphics.

I really wish there is an editor that support vscode's devcontainer like containerisation, but open source. I really don't like doing it manually. Too much effort for something that can be autonated.

[–] catalyst@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Well that didn’t take long at all. 😕

I’m gonna give that fork a try today.

[–] Sunspear@piefed.social 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Lmao I had a boss who was soo enthusiastic about Zed...

I tried it once but it somehow newer clicked for me, I'm kind of happy now that it didn't

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

It is quite good and hopefully one of the privacy forks will rise victorious. But yeah, nothing will ever topple neovim and emacs.