Zed will require age identification for its services(zed.dev)

27 pointsby delduca5 hours ago12 comments

doug-moen4 hours ago
Zed already had terms of use that forbid "reverse engineering" (ie looking at the GPL source code).
Gram is a hard fork that removes the TOS, telemetry and AI, and turns Zed into just a text editor.
https://gram.liten.app/posts/first-release/

This was announced just recently[1]:

   Age requirement. You must be 18 or older to use Zed’s AI-enabled software-as-a-service offering (the “Service").

[1]: https://zed.dev/blog/terms-update

bradreaves24 hours ago
Where does it say that it will require age verification?
The link you sent basically says "you pinky-promise that you're 18."
Later in the doc it also says "you promise not to send malware."
- david_shaw4 hours ago
  It's wild that all other comments in this thread (so far) seem to completely miss this nuance. There are lots of services that, in their terms, require users to be adults.
  This type of age "identification" is a lot different than age verification, submission of ID, etc.
  - mananaysiempre3 hours ago
    A lot different in that it dilutes the rule of law rather than being an actual repressive measure, yes. (See also: underage drinking.) Not clear if it’s better: an enforced stupid law can cause actual pushback; a mostly-unenforced one is liable to be enforced arbitrarily against inconvenient companies. (I’m guessing there’s no actual legal requirement for Zed to reject minors, just some sort of legal regime that makes it more trouble than it’s worth, but that only adds to the arbitrariness. The law could even be non-stupid—e.g. they’re trying to sell user data—but with such a fig leaf it might as well be.)
- overtone10004 hours ago
  Came to say the same. Neither Ctrl+F by this human nor ChatGPT could find anything at all about age or identity verification. I think the title should be changed.
steeve4 hours ago
Misleading title. It's about using their AI service, not the editor.
AceJohnny24 hours ago
Is this because of the CA Age-verification law (AB 1043)?
https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab...
xxpor4 hours ago
The headline is tricky: identification != verification
- righthand4 hours ago
  Just wait until the data lobbies get done twisting the words.
rtcode_io2 hours ago
Zed is gone! Can't let a text buffer humiliate us.
0xdade4 hours ago
Tons of services have terms of service that include a minimum age requirement. That doesn't mean they are _verifying_ those ages. Just that if you are not the minimum age, then you're in breach of the service terms and can be terminated.
YCombinator requires users to be at least 13 years of age. Does that mean HN is going to require age identification? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
sshine2 hours ago
Vim already has age enforcement:
You’ll grow old before you manage to exit!

bigyabai4 hours ago

  Subject to these Terms, Zed will permit Customer to access and use Zed’s AI-enabled software-as-a-service offering (the “Service”), which enables certain additional features and functionality (including artificial intelligence and collaboration features) in Zed’s open source code editing software (“Software”).

bena4 hours ago
You're a fucking text editor. You edit text. You do not need to know how old I am to edit text.
- jsheard4 hours ago
  You don't raise $42M for just a text editor, it was always going to be a vehicle for services and subscriptions and whatever else they can think of.
- whynotmaybe4 hours ago
  I guess they don't want to restrict what you can do with it because of some badly worded law somewhere.
- vorticalbox4 hours ago
  The age verification applies to using their account/ai not the editor itself.
  - bena4 hours ago
    I'm not in the habit of giving mice cookies.
jrm44 hours ago
I installed this one day to try it out and can't remember why I stopped, but apparently now I must hunt it down and destroy every trace of it from my machine, so thanks for the update.