81–90 of 283 posts
The real dark pattern is their ability to bribe the Congress into preventing IRS from implementing free filing.
I can't imagine how horrible a single captive solution from the IRS would be compared to one spawned by the competitive marketplace. Now why our tax code needs to be so complex that it requires software like Turbo Tax is certainly a fair question.
Hey, just an FYI. You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you owe too. There are help guides that step your through the process of filling out the forms as well, like worksheets to calculate deductibles if you need it. It's very important that you go to IRS.gov and look at your options before you ever pay someone to do your…
It's a tradeoff between money/convenience, or money/time. Of course no one NEEDS to pay the $49 for TurboTax. They do it because it is easy. The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications, which are not trivial for a layperson to fill out correctly.
And because Intuit spends a lot of money lobbying to ensure that the IRS won't make things any easier.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, that sounds like a pretty fair service to me: offering short-term credit while also streamlining the customer acquisition process.
A few years ago my finance class had a homework assignment which was to calculate the interest rate you were paying for this "service". It was a good assignment, because there is no "right" answer, because it depends how you define certain values, but all the figures came back with this "service" is like a loan with a 40-80% interest rate.
Payday loans are a similar situation, it seems exploitative to many/most people. But those people who think it's exploitative are the ones who don't need the service in the first place. If you can avoid it, you should never ever get a payday loan. But if it's between a payday loan and missing a rent payment and living on the street, it's a pretty attractive and rational proposition.
Would it be better that a certain segment of the population not have any access to credit? Or is it better that they have access to expensive credit? Moreover, if they want some (expensive) credit, it's pretty paternal and condescending (and sometimes racist) to say that they aren't rational enough actors to deserve it.
Hey, just an FYI. You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you owe too. There are help guides that step your through the process of filling out the forms as well, like worksheets to calculate deductibles if you need it. It's very important that you go to IRS.gov and look at your options before you ever pay someone to do your…
The real dark pattern is their ability to bribe the Congress into preventing IRS from implementing free filing.
I can't imagine how horrible a single captive solution from the IRS would be compared to one spawned by the competitive marketplace. Now why our tax code needs to be so complex that it requires software like Turbo Tax is certainly a fair question.
I see literally no reason to think the IRS would do a worse job of it than the commercial services.
But regardless of that, there's no reason why the IRS couldn't provide services alongside the commercial services. It's not an either-or.
In my experience this year, TurboTax prompted me that I could save money by upgrading to a paid plan via taking advantage of some extra deduction. I thought, "if it's going to save me more than I pay for it, why not?" I clicked through and found that this deduction wouldn't actually save me any money. I then couldn't find a way to get back to the free plan (they only charge you after you file, so this should be possi…
The real dark pattern is their ability to bribe the Congress into preventing IRS from implementing free filing.
While Intuit definitely feeds Congress some money in support of their corporate goals, the lack of free tax filing is probably more Grover Norquist's fault. He strongly opposes anything that would make paying taxes easier, and he has a lot more influence than Intuit.
They're not perfect, but I've had success filing with FreeTaxUSA - federal is free, state is $15: https://www.freetaxusa.com/ Obviously too late for people this year, and my tax situation is relatively straightforward so I can't speak to how well it handles edge cases, but the first year I used it I went through the process with both TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA and got the exact same estimated refund. The last straw with…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont even understand how corporations have rights... My understanding is that in a democratic system the individual voter is the unit of currency. Sadly this gets muddied in a sea of "representatives" and lobby groups which claim to represent people...
Because corporations are just groups of people operating as one legal entity as is required for many ventures which would be too expensive or risky for one person to take on by themselves. Do you think corporations like the New York Times should not have freedom of speech? Do you think the government should be able to arbitrary power against corporations like Planned Parenthood? Should governments have arbitrary powe…
A corporate entity has rights and powers that ordinary people do not, so they are more than "just groups of people". They are independent entities all their own.
Further, they can only exist because the government grants them that privilege, and the government can technically place any restrictions they like on them. In the past, the government used to require that the corporation serve the public good as part of the conditions for their existence.
I don't think it's right or accurate to characterize corporations as just "groups of people" and therefore they should have the rights of people. The law and the courts don't think so, either, which is why corporations are treated differently (with fewer rights) than people are.
I agree with the base assessment the article poses which is that dark patterns are used to get you to pay. But the underlying implication is clear from the tone and wording in the article - that this is a bad or dishonest thing. First off, Intuit is under no legal obligation (to my knowledge anyway) to provide any service for free. They have promised to do so, but I don't think anything related to this promise is leg…
I could see the logic of the argument "these aren't dark patterns", or (to a lesser extent) "these are dark patterns(and therefore dishonest), but dishonesty isn't bad". I'm having trouble working through your argument "these are dark patterns, but they aren't dishonest". Might a fair restatement of your argument be something like: "Reasonably informed people should know that Intuit is a profit-seeking entity, and sh…
And I wasn't saying dishonesty isn't bad. I was saying the implication the article makes that they are dishonest is something I disagree with. So "these are dark patterns, but they aren't dishonest" is indeed what I'm saying - you are correct in that. I generally don't view dark patterns as dishonest. I think that's where you really took issue. I find them more of an annoyance to keep an eye out for and circumvent. And I believe nearly all dark patterns can be spotted and avoided simply by paying attention - i.e. which button is actually confirm and which one is cancel, doing a ctrl-f to find the word "unsubscribe" so you can easily find it, actually reading the words on buttons/links rather than using color as a content guide, etc.
EDIT - grammatical error.