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

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

#1

Post by ciwchris »

I don't remember the timeline. I believe browsing Pinterest anonymously was always limited, therefore I pretty much always avoided this site. At some point LinkedIn changed to require a login to view profiles, well most of the time. Maybe this change occurred around the time Microsoft bought them. I avoid LinkedIn too. At some point both Instagram and Twitter also started aggressively limiting content for anonymous users. Medium and Substack have been increasingly nagging and/or limiting content too. Spotify seems to be trying to increasingly cross sell podcasts and audio books. Just within the last week they've also made multiple attempts to get me to enable push notifications for various communication. And then just this morning I browsed Indeed to keep an eye on what's going on in the local area and found they are limiting search results to one page without logging in. The only one of these I pay for is Spotify, so I guess fair enough, except for Spotify. This certainly isn't a comprehensive list. I feel I'm having to be increasingly defensive. I'm finding I'm spending more and more time blocking, dismissing or having to give up on sites and services.

Is this trend increasing? If so what are some reasons why this is occurring? Is it the changing economy? Because companies dominate the product and so they feel they can get away with it? Because companies grow and lose their first principles? Because of the pressure to always be growing?

I'm interested in hearing the thoughts of others on this topic? Is this behavior increasing? What is contributing to it? Is this something we will need to learn to accept or is this something to contest? Is there a positive aspect to this, such as this behavior will create opportunities for other players?

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

#2

Post by themanmaran »

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.

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

#3

Post by niklasd »

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 last point always confuses me. Twitter can show ads to me without me having an account. Instead, they block me from reading on Twitter after a few tweets, thus loosing my eyeballs. Maybe that's compensated by signups, but it certainly didn't work for me.

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

#4

Post by belkarx »

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.

Conversely, making accounts with a VPN has become essentially impossible, which is extremely limiting even if the rationale makes sense

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

#6

Post by amflare »

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, companies are getting ever more pushy, trying to convert the "78% of viewers who are not subscribed" (as YouTubers put it), so that they can continue hitting their exponential metrics and stave off the effect of their existing user base spending less.

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

#7

Post by acedTrex »

niklasd wrote: post #3
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 last point always confuses me. Twitter can show ads to me without me having an account. Instead, they block me from reading on Twitter after a few tweets, thus loosing my eyeballs. Maybe that's compensated by signups, but it certainly didn't work for me.

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

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

#8

Post by wincy »

niklasd wrote: post #3
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 last point always confuses me. Twitter can show ads to me without me having an account. Instead, they block me from reading on Twitter after a few tweets, thus loosing my eyeballs. Maybe that's compensated by signups, but it certainly didn't work for me.

Good news, one of Elon’s top priorities is to remove this nagging stuff and make Twitter fully usable via browser again.

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

#9

Post by EFreethought »

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,…

Second derivative capitalism will be the end of us all.

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

#10

Post by danwee »

Agree. There's a bunch of websites I don't visit anymore: Pinterest (you need an account just to browse pictures? c'mon!), Reddit (some subreddits are only available via the app... I'll never install the Reddit app), Instagram, Medium, Twitter, lots of newspapers.

I thought I was going to miss them, but I haven't.

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