In principle, of course you are correct. In practice, however, this viewpoint ignores a key fact of modern life.
The ToS for most services nowadays are extremely draconian and one-sided. The vast majority of the time, service providers don't bother exercising the rights they've reserved to themselves. If you try to live strictly within the safe zone of the ToS of every service you use, you'll be crippled. You either live a little bit dangerously, or you go home and hide under the bed. When someone does run afoul of Google's wrath (or whatever other service provider), often it's not because they did something unusually bad, it's simply that they had the bad luck to get noticed.
Let me use speed limits as an analogy. It's not uncommon (speaking for the U.S.) to find a highway with a posted speed limit of X MPH, and most traffic driving at X+5 or so. A police officer typically won't pull you over for driving X+5 in that situation, but technically you're breaking the law, and if they do pull you over, you'll probably wind up paying the ticket.
The situation with common ToS's is that the road is safe for up to 80 MPH, and most people are going 60, but the posted speed limit is 3 MPH. The police (service provider) can, at their whim, nail whoever they like for going 20 times the limit.
What's sad about this is that the situation does not incent good behavior, it incents keeping your head down.
I think there's a difference of kind, and not degree, between the services that you use for financial gain, and the services you use because you like them. I can understand if you don't read Facebook's TOS. I haven't. But if I used Adwords, and I depended on it as a part of my business, I would read the TOS.
Yes, good advice. But you're likely to find some large grey areas, and also some things that the ToS seems to forbid but seem reasonable / ethical, and lots of people are doing. If you avoid all of those grey and pseudo-black areas, you're hamstringing yourself. If you don't avoid them, you're vulnerable to being shut down arbitrarily. Which path do you choose?
The ToS for most services nowadays are extremely draconian and one-sided. The vast majority of the time, service providers don't bother exercising the rights they've reserved to themselves. If you try to live strictly within the safe zone of the ToS of every service you use, you'll be crippled. You either live a little bit dangerously, or you go home and hide under the bed. When someone does run afoul of Google's wrath (or whatever other service provider), often it's not because they did something unusually bad, it's simply that they had the bad luck to get noticed.
Let me use speed limits as an analogy. It's not uncommon (speaking for the U.S.) to find a highway with a posted speed limit of X MPH, and most traffic driving at X+5 or so. A police officer typically won't pull you over for driving X+5 in that situation, but technically you're breaking the law, and if they do pull you over, you'll probably wind up paying the ticket.
The situation with common ToS's is that the road is safe for up to 80 MPH, and most people are going 60, but the posted speed limit is 3 MPH. The police (service provider) can, at their whim, nail whoever they like for going 20 times the limit.
What's sad about this is that the situation does not incent good behavior, it incents keeping your head down.