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Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

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Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#111

Post by jrs235 »

klyrs wrote: post #38
acedTrex wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter makes more money showing TARGETED ads, ads that dont have a demo targeting are not nearly as valuable

Old school webmasters (perhaps this is redundant phrasing) know that's okay. Back in the day, you'd say "I'll put your animated gif on my site for $500 per month" and if you had a networking forum Cisco or whoever would happily pay that secure in the knowledge that your viewers were in the market for their product. Lesson: target the content, not the viewer. You know the general demographics of who is engaging positi…

Re-targeting ads seem like a joke. Many times I've already bought their product or competitor's and am no longer interested. Hopefully they are paying for click throughs and not impressions.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#112

Post by badtension »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #42
omoikane wrote: post #34

Twitter recently removed the login prompt[1], so at least one website is now slightly less pushy. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33724569

Does that work consistently for anyone else? I don't have a Twitter account but there are a couple of Twitter posters I occasionally check on - and I'm still seeing the "See more Tweets from ..." modal at times (I just verified it now).

I am still getting the login window after scrolling a few tweets. Same in incognito, doesn't matter if I accept all cookies or not.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#113

Post by [deleted] »

ergonaught wrote: post #37

Consequence of everyone thinking the purpose of anything at all is to make money (which is almost never the point of anything). Everything is always an advertisement, everyone is always selling. There’s no positive end game to it, it’s just drain circling. The EU and such will horribly mangle “solutions” because they don’t understand anything, and “governments” move too slowly even when they do understand things. Les…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#114

Post by grantsch »

eastbound wrote: post #22
amflare wrote: post #6

IMO its because the demand for ever growing growth (not only must we grow on last year (growth up 5%), but our growth must be faster (growth trajectory up 5%)) is running headlong into a shrinking economy. Anonymous users have always represented the best potential growth since they already use the service, so convincing them to convert should be easier than convincing someone who has never heard of the product. Ergo,…

But every business is always looking to maximize, but why is there a sort of contraction, and why now? There used to be a period of “Patrick McKenzie way of doing business” during 2005-2020 ( https://www.kalzumeus.com/ ): - Be nice with customers, - Reimburse when they haven’t used the software, - Provide value, even with 3 fields on a webform, - And you’ll get positive feedback loop into higher revenue, even with a…

Well the fact that these companies were given enough capital not to worry about turning a profit indefinitely did contribute to it

Revenue alone just isn't enough. You have to turn a profit

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#115

Post by elcritch »

JohnFen wrote: post #102
TylerE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more evil, I've started to see things (mostly apps) use "Miss Out" instead of No, explicitly and literally feeding FOMO.

Things like that are a clear and obvious indicator that whoever is producing it are scumbags and shouldn't be trusted even a little. I never feel FOMO from them.

Even traditionally legitimate sites are doing it more often now, unfortunately. Still, I view it as neediness or manipulation though and it makes me think less of the site.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#116

Post by lawlorino »

itronitron wrote: post #90
lm28469 wrote: post #49

Most of the web and apps feel hostile these days On Playstation starting the YouTube app now gets you a full screen unskippable ad before even reaching the app Prime video show you ads even if you're a paying customer Every now and then I listen to a podcast to fall asleep, 50% chance I'll be jump scared by a 0.1kbps ad in German that has the volume 4x louder than the podcast itself Google removing video previews for…

I've purchased more DVDs in the past year than the previous ten years combined.

Similarly, we borrow a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays from the local library nowadays.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#117

Post by treebeard901 »

andirk wrote: post #97
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #31

It does feel like every website is turning into a bad 90's infomercial - instead of "buy now and get 2 for $39.95!" its "like and subscribe!" multiple times per video, even more fluff in the video to lengthen them or ad reads by podcasters that don't care what they are advertising because just 1% is all they need to click/follow the link. Everything on the internet is a metric (likes, subscribers, mins viewed, follow…

Reminds me of people who mark every one of their emails on Microsoft Outlook with the "Urgent" flag. Or people who immediately want to speak to the manager. There's something psychotic about it all.

Underlying a lot of psychotic behavior is a lack of empathy often caused by varying forms of a narcissitic personality disorder. Itself the root of many other disorders.

The culprit has got to be all of the tech and more specifically, social media. It causes more damage than most realize. It's basically a narcissism breeding machine and the advent of social media lines up perfectly with so many serious problems in society.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#118

Post by nicbou »

Yes, it's happening across the board. I shut down a lot of it with ad blocker rules, and in the last year I had to keep adding rules for new growth hacks.

Modern tech is a non-stop sales pitch, and it keeps getting worse.

I think that the modern business model is to grow at any cost, take over a market, and extract a toll. We're experiencing the toll being raised.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#119

Post by nicbou »

AlexandrB wrote: post #15
themanmaran wrote: post #2

Things I've noticed: 1. Obtrusive messaging / sign up modals / exit intent modals work. I hate them. But they convert. 2. There is a large group of people who don't blink at the 'account required' messages. They just sign up. 3. If you don't have an account, you're not a useful customer. There is no reason for the company to cater to you.

What honestly bothers me more is how "Yes/No" dialogs are increasingly being replaced by "Yes/Later", even in paid products/services. Seems like companies are done with even pretending to take "No" for an answer when they want to push something on you.

It's interesting to see tech behave in ways that would get people banned from pubs. I'd worry if I dated someone with a product manager's understanding of consent.

Re: Ask HN: Are companies becoming increasingly pushy? If so why?

#120

Post by nicbou »

switchbak wrote: post #23
themanmaran wrote: post #2

Things I've noticed: 1. Obtrusive messaging / sign up modals / exit intent modals work. I hate them. But they convert. 2. There is a large group of people who don't blink at the 'account required' messages. They just sign up. 3. If you don't have an account, you're not a useful customer. There is no reason for the company to cater to you.

The obtrusive modals are a brutal trend in modern web design, especially the whole-page cookies thing. Now I sometimes see 2-3 modals stacked ... does anyone actually stay on such a site? I get that a newsletter modal might be worth it, but there's just no way they're not losing users by making them close 3 bullshit windows (cookies, privacy, black friday!, newsletter) before they get to useful content. A user needs…

My website has none. I thought it was normal because I've had the "annoyances" uBlock filters turned on for so long.

Then I bought a device that doesn't support uBlock and got a taste of the modern web. Not pissing off your visitors has to be a competitive advantage by now.

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