Does everyone sign the same contract? Context changes everything.

Oct 29, 2025 1:44:19 PM

15 min read

illustration of four people from different backgrounds signing identical contracts at a table, each showing different emotions and levels of understanding.

Written on: Oct 29, 2025 1:44:19 PM

Read time: 15 min read

Written by: Chris Fortune

Tags : Informed Consent Understanding Trust & transparency

What this blog contains:

Introduction
The Illusion of the “Same Contract”
When “Yes” Doesn’t Mean Informed Consent
Lost in Legalese: Why Contracts Go Unread
Real-World Examples: Same Terms, Different Understandings
Clarity Over Compliance: Toward Fairer Agreements
Conclusion

Introduction

Most people assume that if two parties sign the same contract, they have agreed to the exact same thing. The text is identical, so the understanding must be identical too – or so the logic goes. In reality, the words on the page are only part of the story. Each person brings their own context, knowledge, and assumptions to the agreement, often leading to very different interpretations of what they just signed. The result? What looks like a simple “yes, I agree” on paper can hide a world of misunderstanding.

Consider how you approach the endless Terms of Service online or a dense loan agreement. Do you comb through every paragraph with a fine-tooth comb, or do you skim (or skip) and trust that it’s “standard stuff”? If you’re like the vast majority, you probably don’t read every word. And even if you do, there’s no guarantee you truly grasp every nuance. This gap between the official contract text and the signer’s actual understanding is where confusion and disputes often take root. In this blog, we’ll explore why everyone’s “same” contract experience isn’t really the same at all, how context shapes consent, and why true fairness in agreements comes not from blind compliance but from clear, shared understanding.

The Illusion of the “Same Contract”

When two people sign identical documents, it’s easy to imagine they’ve made the same agreement. After all, the ink on the page doesn’t change. But context is everything. One signer might be a seasoned lawyer who fully grasps each clause, while the other is a first-timer who finds the legal jargon bewildering. They both say “yes” to the same terms, yet what they think they’ve agreed to could be poles apart. The contract text may be identical, but the meaning in each signer’s mind is not. This illusion of uniform agreement often lulls businesses into a false sense of security – “we gave everyone the same contract, so everyone’s on the same page.” In truth, each person has their own “version” of the contract in their head, shaped by their level of understanding, their questions (answered or unanswered), and even external information they relied on.

Context can include a person’s prior knowledge, advice they received, or explanations given during the signing process. For example, imagine two employees signing an employment contract with a non-compete clause. One asks a lot of questions and is told verbally that the clause is just a formality and rarely enforced, so they sign believing it’s no big deal. The other employee, however, gets no extra explanation and signs with a stricter interpretation in mind. Down the line, their behaviors will differ because one thought the contract was flexible while the other thought it was rigid. They “signed the same contract,” but did they really agree to the same thing? Without capturing those conversations and assumptions, the company might later face accusations like “But I was told this clause wouldn’t actually restrict me.” This is the crux: the words are the same, yet each person’s agreement is filtered through their own context.

When “Yes” Doesn’t Mean Informed Consent

Just because someone says “I agree” (or signs on the dotted line) doesn’t mean their consent is informed. In fields like medicine or research, we use the term “informed consent” to mean the person truly understands what they’re agreeing to, not just that they’ve technically agreed. Increasingly, that concept is spilling over into consumer and business contracts. Why? Because a signature or click is often a legal formality that masks an uncomfortable truth: many people agree without full understanding. They feel they have little choice (you can’t use the service or get the job unless you sign), so they go along. The consent is given, but is it informed? Far too often, the answer is no.

Think about the last time you scrolled to the bottom of a terms-and-conditions popup and hit “Accept” without reading a thing. You definitely consented in the legal sense, but you probably wouldn’t claim you carefully informed yourself. Saying “yes” under these circumstances is more like a reflex – a necessary button-click to move forward – rather than a thoughtful agreement. And that’s a problem. When a customer later discovers something nasty in the fine print, they feel betrayed: “I didn’t know I agreed to that!” From a legal standpoint, the company might argue, “Well, you accepted the terms.” But from an ethical and practical standpoint, regulators and courts are starting to ask, “Did this person truly understand what they accepted?”

The law traditionally operates on a doctrine often called the “duty to read,” meaning if you signed it, you’re bound by it, understood or not. However, there are growing exceptions and challenges to that notion when consent clearly wasn’t informed. If a contract’s language or presentation prevents a reasonable person from understanding what they’re agreeing to, can we really treat their “yes” as genuine agreement? In some cases, courts have voided specific terms or even entire contracts on the grounds of unconscionability or misrepresentation – essentially saying that blind consent to baffling terms isn’t good enough when fairness is on the line. In everyday business, this is showing up as a push for companies to obtain not just agreement, but confirmation of understanding. A contract signed in ignorance is a dispute waiting to happen. “Yes” needs to mean “Yes, and I know exactly what I’m saying yes to,” not “Yes, if you say so.”

Lost in Legalese: Why Contracts Go Unread

Why do so many people fail to truly understand what they sign? One big reason is the way contracts are written. Traditional contracts are notoriously long, dense, and filled with legalese. They often seem like they’re written for lawyers, not for the average person signing them. It’s not unusual for consumer contracts or service agreements to be written at a reading level far above that of a typical adult. In fact, studies have found that many terms of service and financial contracts demand college or even postgraduate-level reading skills to fully comprehend. Meanwhile, the average adult reads at a level several grades lower. In plain terms, the contract might as well be written in a foreign language for all the good it does a reader without legal training. Small wonder that people give up and don’t read thoroughly – or read it but misinterpret the “legalese” and complex clauses.

Even when the language is understood, the sheer length is a barrier. Modern life bombards us with agreements to accept. If one single app’s terms might take an hour to read, imagine trying to read every license agreement, every insurance policy, every user agreement in full. One famous calculation estimated it would take an ordinary person many weeks of full-time reading to get through all the privacy policies and T&Cs they agree to in a year. It’s just not realistic. People’s eyes glaze over, and they trust that if anything truly important were in there, someone would have told them or it would have made headlines. This trust is often misplaced, but it’s how real humans cope with information overload. Companies have little incentive to simplify those texts – historically, the longer and more detailed a contract, the more it covers the company’s bases legally. But the result is an understanding gap: the company can say “we disclosed everything in the document,” while the customer can honestly say “I had no clue what half of that meant.” Both statements are true, and that’s a recipe for trouble.

There’s also the issue of presentation. Ever notice how the most critical parts of a contract (like cancellation fees, arbitration clauses, or exclusions of liability) are often buried deep in paragraph 47, rather than highlighted up front? Traditional contracts tend to favor form over clarity – the important stuff is technically in there, but not necessarily in a way that grabs the signer’s attention. Legally, that might meet the disclosure requirement. Practically, it fails the understanding test. This is why consumer protection agencies and forward-thinking businesses are pushing for clearer communication: using plain language, summaries, bullet points, and other tools to make sure the key terms aren’t just present but plain to see. When contracts hide behind jargon and fine print, everyone signs the “same” document, but almost no one understands it. The contract becomes a tick-box exercise rather than a meeting of the minds.

Real-World Examples: Same Terms, Different Understandings

It’s easier to grasp the impact of context by looking at a few real-world scenarios. Time and again, we see cases where two parties technically agreed to the same written terms, yet their understandings were miles apart. Here are some examples that highlight why context (or lack thereof) changes everything:

The “Immortal Soul” Clause Prank: One infamous example comes from a 2010 April Fool’s prank by a UK video game retailer. They inserted a hidden clause in their online terms saying the customer agrees to surrender their immortal soul to the company. Of course, it was a joke – after a couple of weeks, the company revealed the gag and nullified the clause. But here’s the punchline: about 88% of customers didn’t catch it at all and unknowingly “agreed” to give away their souls. Only the remaining 12% read far enough to opt out of that absurd term (and those vigilant few got a £5 voucher as a reward). This stunt illustrates a serious point: the vast majority of people will click “I agree” to whatever, even to ridiculous or harmful terms, simply because they don’t read them. The context for most was “this is just routine, nothing to worry about” – and so almost everyone missed a clause that literally anyone would object to if they knew it was there.
Verbal Promises vs. Written Contract: Imagine a customer buying an insurance policy or a financial product after speaking with a sales representative. The written contract they sign might be full of exclusions and fine print, but the customer’s understanding is shaped by the conversation they had. If the agent says, “Don’t worry, you’re covered for everything important,” that assurance becomes the customer’s reality. They sign the standard contract (which, unbeknownst to them, maybe doesn’t cover everything). Later, when a problem arises – say a claim is denied because of a hidden exclusion – the customer is furious: “Your rep told me X, but the contract says Y!” From the company’s side, all they have is the contract (which clearly excluded the scenario). From the customer’s side, they feel they were promised coverage. Both technically “agreed” to the same text, but only one of them knew what that text really entailed. These situations often devolve into ugly disputes, essentially a “he-said, she-said” about who said what during the sale. Many contracts include an “entire agreement” clause precisely to state that only the written contract counts – a direct response to this problem – but that doesn’t stop customers from feeling misled when their understanding doesn’t match the paperwork.
The Unread Update: Have you ever gotten an email that “We’ve updated our terms and conditions” and just deleted it? Most people have. One study in the UK found that over two-thirds of people either don’t read or don’t fully understand even the contracts they sign for everyday things like utilities or subscriptions. And when terms change, an overwhelming 82% admitted they rarely or never check the updates. Real-life consequence: a telecom provider might update its contract to include a new fee or arbitration clause, notify customers in a long email, and assume all is well. A year later, a customer is shocked by the fee or tries to sue only to learn they gave up the right to litigate. The company says, “It was in the contract update we sent, you agreed by continuing service.” The customer says, “I had no idea; I didn’t see that!” Again – same “agreement” on paper, totally different awareness. It’s not that customers are lazy; often these notices are so dense or frequent that it’s impractical to scrutinize them all. The context (busy lives, information overload) leads people to assume nothing major changed unless told otherwise.
Mass Mis-selling Scandals: The financial world has seen large-scale cases where thousands of people were technically in agreement, yet almost none truly understood what they signed up for. A notable example is the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) mis-selling scandal in the UK. Banks and lenders sold insurance along with loans and credit cards, often burying the insurance terms in the loan contract or glossing over them. Many customers either didn’t realize they were buying an add-on insurance at all, or they didn’t understand the conditions (like exclusions that made the insurance practically useless to them). Years later, when the truth came out, it turned into one of the biggest consumer compensation sagas ever. Billions of pounds were refunded. Why? Because regulators determined that saying “the customer agreed to it” wasn’t good enough – most of those customers hadn’t knowingly consented in any meaningful way. They signed the loan papers, yes, but the PPI part was essentially hidden in plain sight. This kind of case shows that even if a contract is legally enforceable, society (and the law) recognizes a difference between having someone’s signature and having their true understanding.
Hidden Arbitration and Lost Rights: In the fine print of many service agreements (from credit cards to mobile apps), there are clauses that significantly affect a customer’s rights – for instance, mandatory arbitration clauses that waive the right to sue in court, or clauses limiting liability for the company. Virtually nobody reads far enough to notice these before agreeing. Only when a problem occurs do they discover, “Oh, I can’t take this to court because I apparently agreed to private arbitration” or “I can’t join a class action lawsuit.” A customer might feel they never agreed to give up those rights, but in the eyes of the contract, they did. The context here is a power imbalance and a gamble: companies know people are unlikely to read or understand that they’ve waived legal rights, and consumers assume (often incorrectly) that if something truly serious were in there, it would have been called out clearly. This disconnect leads to outrage and distrust when those hidden terms come to light. It’s another example where “we all signed the same contract” doesn’t count for much – what matters is who actually knew what they were giving away.

All of these examples drive home a simple truth: the agreement on paper is only half the equation. The other half is the human element – what people think they agreed to. When those two halves don’t match, conflict ensues. Customers claim “I never would have agreed if I’d known that,” and sometimes they genuinely feel tricked or blindsided. Businesses might counter with “But it was in the contract, you had the chance to read it,” which, while legally relevant, doesn’t magically erase the customer’s sense of betrayal or confusion. In practice, these misunderstandings cost everyone: legal disputes, complaints to regulators, damaged relationships and reputations. Many of those costs could be avoided if contracts weren’t just the same documents for everyone, but were also understood in the same way by everyone. That’s where the next part comes in – how do we bridge that gap?

Clarity Over Compliance: Toward Fairer Agreements

If the core problem is that “compliance” (getting a signature or an “I agree” click) doesn’t guarantee understanding, then the solution is straightforward: prioritize clarity and shared understanding above all. True fairness in contracts comes from making sure both sides genuinely know what they’re agreeing to, not just from the act of agreement itself. This means reimagining how agreements are presented and documented. Companies that value long-term trust are beginning to take this to heart. For instance, there’s a growing movement to simplify and humanize contract language – using clear, plain English descriptions for key terms, providing summaries or even visual explanations for complex clauses, and highlighting the parts that people most often miss. An agreement shouldn’t feel like a trap or an endurance test; it should strive to be as accessible as possible.

Regulators are also turning up the pressure. In the financial and legal sectors especially, new rules are emerging that require firms to do more than just shove a document under a customer’s nose and say “sign here.” Take the UK’s recent Consumer Duty regulations for financial services: they explicitly demand that companies ensure customers are given information in a way they can understand, at the appropriate time, and even to show evidence that the customer understood before committing. In other words, it’s not enough to have the customer’s compliance – you need some confidence that the customer was informed. This might involve confirming understanding with a quick quiz or acknowledgement (“Do you understand that your interest rate can change and what that means? Yes/No”) or providing layered information (a one-page summary with the option to drill down into details if the customer wants more). The idea is to embed the missing context into the agreement process itself, rather than assume the lengthy contract PDF will do the job.

Technology and innovative solutions are stepping up to help on this front. For example, platforms like i agree are focusing on what you might call “contextual contracts.” They let businesses attach explanations, Q&A, and even video walkthroughs to each section of an agreement, ensuring that a signer isn’t flying blind. They also capture the evidence of that process – who viewed the explainer video, what questions were asked and answered, which crucial points were acknowledged by the signer. By doing so, the contract stops being just a static piece of text and becomes a richer record of an informed agreement. Imagine signing a contract and alongside your signature is a log that says, “User watched a 2-minute summary video about the fees and answered 3 quick questions to confirm understanding.” Now that is a lot more reassuring, for both sides, than a signature on page 17 with no insight into whether the person actually got what they signed.

The shift toward clarity doesn’t just protect consumers – it also protects businesses in the long run. When customers know what they’re agreeing to, there are fewer nasty surprises later. Fewer surprises mean fewer complaints, chargebacks, cancellations, or lawsuits. It builds trust: a customer who feels a company is transparent and tries to help them understand terms is far more likely to stick around and less likely to escalate issues. It’s essentially treating the agreement as a mutual understanding rather than a dare (“bet you won’t find the hidden clause!”). Of course, getting there requires effort: re-writing contracts in plainer language, investing in better disclosure tools, training staff to emphasize clarity in sales conversations, and so on. But these efforts pay off through smoother relationships and less time spent firefighting misunderstandings.

Importantly, focusing on clarity aligns with basic ethics: it respects the person on the other side of the contract. Rather than exploiting the knowledge gap (“we know what this clause means and the customer doesn’t, lucky us”), it seeks to eliminate that gap. This doesn’t mean a business has to highlight every single worst-case scenario in bold red letters to scare customers off. It means giving a fair and honest presentation of the key points – especially any terms that significantly affect the customer – in a way that a reasonable person would grasp. It also means giving people a real chance to ask questions and get answers in plain language. An informed customer can give genuine consent; an uninformed customer can only give a hollow, and potentially contentious, consent.

Conclusion

So, does everyone sign the same contract? On the surface, yes – the text may be identical. But once you scratch that surface, you find that an agreement lives or dies in the minds of the people signing it. Context is the invisible contract each person carries with them: their understanding (or misunderstanding), their assumptions, and the explanations they did or didn’t receive. Change the context, and you change the meaning of the contract without altering a single word on the page. That’s why two people can sign “the same” agreement and walk away with completely different ideas of what they’ve agreed to. And that’s why it’s vital, in today’s world, to bridge that gap.

True fairness and success in any agreement come from alignment – a meeting of the minds, not just matching signatures. Getting there means valuing clarity over the quick win of unchecked compliance. It means recognizing that a contract is not an end in itself, but a representation of a relationship and mutual understanding. By making contracts clearer, more contextual, and more interactive, we honor the spirit of consent rather than just the letter of it. In practice, that could mean fewer legal battles and more genuine trust between companies and their customers. The next time you’re presented with a contract, or you present one to someone else, remember: a signature is just ink on paper (or pixels on a screen). It’s the conversation, the clarity, and the context behind that signature that determine whether everyone involved is truly on the same page. In the end, making sure “I agree” means “I understand and agree” is what turns a contract from a ticking time bomb into a solid foundation for collaboration.