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jimrandomh comments on Mandating Information Disclosure vs. Banning Deceptive Contract Terms - Less Wrong
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I don't know if those policies were popular, but if they were popular, that might be because people didn't understand their consequences. Again the key point is how can an accountable government force people to protect themselves who don't want to be protected? My guess is that they would prefer private means of protection, but since those private means are not allowed, they must settle for the public means you offer. You argue that the reason we need public means is that private means will not work because they don't want to be protected. But if they don't want to be protected, why do they support laws protecting them?
Offering someone a bad contract harms them. (By 'bad contract' I mean one that gives negative utility to the party that didn't draft it.) Either they accept it without knowing it's bad, in which case the bad terms harm them, or else they find out and reject it, in which case they've spent resources analyzing it for which they get nothing in return. And checking a contract for bad terms isn't cheap; lawyers charge thousands of dollars for that service. Someone who goes around offering bad deals can still inflict massive damage even if none of his offers is accepted. No one has managed to come up with a "private means of protection" which is cheaper than a lawyer on retainer. I don't think the problem is that people don't want to be protected; rather, the problem is that most people can't possibly afford any private protection.