How Booking.com manipulates users • Hacker News Board

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#81

Post by hw » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

troydavis wrote: post #13

hw wrote: post #6

I've always wondered if some of these tactics are kosher and legal. Especially the ones that say 'someone just booked this' or the notifications on ecommerce sites that say 'X bought this in the last hour'. Most of the ecommerce ones are just fake data meant to entice the shopper into buying into urgency.

Here's the FTC's "truth in advertising" guide, which has links to the primary-source documents: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/adv... The most questionable mainstream ad I've seen recently is by Amazon.com, which somehow manages to convince employees that it's "Earth's most customer-centric company" while concurrently using some of the sleaziest dark patterns of any merchant, small or large.…

Thanks, didn't know there was a TIA guide. Would one consider 'X people bought this recently', or 'X people are looking at this now' to be an advertisement for the product, or just a statement unrelated to the actual product (what it is and/pr does, price)

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#82

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

taytus wrote: post #54

feelin_googley wrote: post #38

What if the manpulation was easily avoidable? The last time this website came up on HN (same issue), I conducted an experiment. The annoyances and manipulation described by the blogger sounded like it relied on Javascript and graphics. I wanted to see how far I could get without using a graphical browser. I was able to 1. search hotels, 2. return a list of properties in CSV/JSON/TXT, 3. return prices and 4. book. It…

>It required only a shell script of 107 lines, 308 characters, 2934 bytes. This could be further reduced. Yeah, totally common for average people to do this.

[deleted]

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#83

Post by redial » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:37 AM UTC

eh78ssxv2f wrote: post #61

Osmium wrote: post #22

To anyone from Booking.com reading this: I'll go elsewhere next time I need to book a room. Dark patterns may help profits in the short-term, but they're terrible for your brand. Just ask TicketMaster. It isn't just tech-savvy users that will catch on to this either. If an everyday user uses Booking.com, reads reviews and thinks their room will be great, but then has a bad experience, they're going to stop trusting B…

> Just ask TicketMaster. TM has been doing pretty well in terms of stock price (not the user happiness) -- probably the metric that they care about. So, I am not sure if that's the best example. Source: https://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chd...

They have a monopoly just like Comcast.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#84

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

sturgill wrote: post #20

edejong wrote: post #5

This is what A/B testing does to a popular site. You test for immediate customer engagement but cannot (easily) test long-term customer loyalty. This is why booking.com has become the largest online hotel booking site in several continents. Nevertheless, I think it will eventually be their downfall.

"Frankly, I don’t think I am going to stop using Booking.com. I am not aware of any other service with a comparable number of properties and reviews." It's hard to quantify negative impact of future dealings, but it's even harder to say Booking.com should change their methods when the people aware enough to be annoyed continue to give them money. It's like complaining about Google following you around the web and usi…

>"It's hard to quantify negative impact of future dealings, but it's even harder to say Booking.com should change their methods when the people aware enough to be annoyed continue to give them money"

Please tell me how to avoid the duopoly that is Booking.com(Priceline Group) and Expedia in Europe? Especially so when making new booking on short notice. Booking.com has maintained close to 60% market share:

http://www.hotrec.eu/newsroom/press-releases-1714/dominant-o...

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#85

Post by myoffe » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

I absolutely loath Booking.com's UX.

Whenever it's possible, I use something else, like HostelWorld. Their interface is clean, to the point, and the reviews and ratings can actually be trusted.

I'm happy someone did this website. I just came back from a long trip and every time somebody asked me why I hate Booking.com, I pointed exactly to some of the points that were made there. The fake sense of urgency, the cluttered UI. And the cherry on top: The fact they display the "total cost of all nights" in the results, instead of the per-night cost. That's not a misleading UX, it's just a bad UX decision.

But because of it's popularity amongst accommodation owners and travelers, its fall is unlikely.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#86

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:41 AM UTC

feelin_googley wrote: post #38

What if the manpulation was easily avoidable? The last time this website came up on HN (same issue), I conducted an experiment. The annoyances and manipulation described by the blogger sounded like it relied on Javascript and graphics. I wanted to see how far I could get without using a graphical browser. I was able to 1. search hotels, 2. return a list of properties in CSV/JSON/TXT, 3. return prices and 4. book. It…

[deleted]

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#87

Post by hw » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:42 AM UTC

abruzzi wrote: post #77

aianus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not aware of any other service with a comparable number of properties and reviews. Why do you need so many properties and reviews? You're staying in one room, presumably. You just need at least one room with a few good reviews in your price range and you're good to go.

I find it strange too, though that may be because of the type of locations I stay. I don't seen any reason for customer loyalty to a single booking site. There is very little friction to just use the hotels own booking sites. For each town I stay in there is usually two or three hotels to choose from that have online booking (occasionally I have to make a phone call to book since there are no hotels with online booki…

> I also never look at reviews since my experience has found that reviews are useless to me. I think reviewers tend to care about things I don't, and have had excellent experiences at places with generally bad reviews.

This is the same with restaurant reviews on sites like Yelp. A restaurant that has 2.5 stars could have excellent, delicious food but are docked points because people who went there and reviewed cared more about the service than the food, or expected the service to be top notch at a place where great service isn't typically expected.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#88

Post by emrekzd » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:47 AM UTC

feelin_googley wrote: post #38

What if the manpulation was easily avoidable? The last time this website came up on HN (same issue), I conducted an experiment. The annoyances and manipulation described by the blogger sounded like it relied on Javascript and graphics. I wanted to see how far I could get without using a graphical browser. I was able to 1. search hotels, 2. return a list of properties in CSV/JSON/TXT, 3. return prices and 4. book. It…

> all these annoyances can easily be avoided by choosing the right browser.

The right browser == non-graphical browser. Good joke.

You can achieve the same by installing a simple browser extension for managing cookies & randomizing browser footprint. Firefox has some.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#89

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:47 AM UTC

hervature wrote: post #66

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for us (and fortunately for TicketMaster), there usually is no alternative to them. That doesn't hold true for Booking.com

Do people not Google for alternatives? I can think of at least 5 competitors to Ticket Master. There's even one that only charges 5% seller fee and no buyer fee.

>"I can think of at least 5 competitors to Ticket Master"

Not in the US you can't. And certainly not for venues large than a club.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#90

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:49 AM UTC

zavulon wrote: post #80

hervature wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people not Google for alternatives? I can think of at least 5 competitors to Ticket Master. There's even one that only charges 5% seller fee and no buyer fee.

For most events (at least in the US), you can only get tickets via TicketMaster. Venues sign an agreement with TM that forbids them selling tickets elsewhere. TM controls venue's entire ticket sale workflow, including inventory, printing and sending tickets, etc. Going with another vendor is a gigantic undertaking, you would need to overhaul most of your processes. Most venues don't have the resources/bandwidth to pu…

Sure and it's the same on the artist side. If you want to tour you can not avoid Ticketmaster. Remember Perl Jam at the height of their popularity and powers tried to take them on and lost:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pearl-jam-sues-ticketmaster/