31–40 of 69 posts
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Isn't this basically false advertising?
Arguably; it's not advertising the product itself (e.g. hotels). There's no rules against misreporting user or activity statistics as far as I know.
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I run a development agency, and on a few occasions, we've had clients ask us to build features similar to what you've outlined above. One of those clients had a pretty thorough specification document that outlined how this behavior should work. When you open the listing, it should wait a few seconds and then show you a number between 8 and 20 of people who are actively looking at this listing. If it was night-time, i…
Isn't this basically false advertising?
So technically, it's not. But I agree with you that it should be labeled as such.
When companies slow down their web experience and push their mobile apps, where users cannot block tracking or ads as easily.
Roach Motel is a great name, but surely it should be called Hotel California?
It's missing the one that I hate the most: the way Booking.com and similar sites create a fake sense of urgency. "9 people are actively looking at this hotel right now!" Yeah, right.
Also, this functionality has received significant amount of scrutiny from some regulators, so last I looked, there was a mouse over that gave the actual definition.
That being said, in no way am I trying to convince anyone that it's not a "dark pattern" or that you have to think it's a good idea on any way. Just looking to preempt some comment that claims Booking.com is actively lying about this. They weren't ~5-6 years ago when I read the implementation and I don't they could've started doing that systematically since then due to regulatory attention.
Their recommendation is to use the chat support but whenever I try it says: "All of our advocates are currently occupied. Please try again soon or call us now." I also tried to do it in email, of course no response for 2 days now. I'm not from the US so I don't want to call them on the phone...
Unbelievable that such a big name as NYT does this with their customers, this is disgusting and I can't believe this is not against the law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this basically false advertising?
Arguably; it's not advertising the product itself (e.g. hotels). There's no rules against misreporting user or activity statistics as far as I know.
One thing I don't understand is why we are calling these patterns _dark_ rather than _manipulative_, or even just calling it straight up manipulation? I feel like manipulation has a clear meaning for a lot of people, which I would define as attempts at making you do things against your best interest. This definitely applies to booking.com's multiple practices of creating artificial urgency, various website's "opt-in"…
Like imagine all those people working for the S&P 500 companies. Amazon, Apple, Disney, Home Depot, AT&T, whatever. Things they do? Neither manipulative no dark pattern.
Automatically transitioning from a free trial to a subscription in the App Store? Bright pattern! Essentially unmoderated reviews on products and mysterious badges? Phone locking? Even Disney Channel runs ads, they’re just called Movie Surfers and it’s only cross promotion in the world’s largest media business.
Dark patterns, that’s for things that make money but are not S&P 500. People will debate if something Google does is dark or bright but booking.com? I mean fuck them right? Nobody is defending some business that isn’t growing their pension or hiring their kid, but we’re talking about it not because it offends our morals but because it makes a bunch of money.
Then there’s just day to day stuff that we do. For some people, it can’t be manipulative or a dark pattern if we personally do it. For example, generalizing about people of a different ethnicity than us. Or considering an argument won so long as the last word spoken agrees with us. “That’s not manipulative,” you’ll say. Fucking exactly! We can’t see how things that we ourselves sometimes do as manipulative, and litigating that on an Internet forum is fucking stupid so fuck me.
Many things are manipulative. Commerce and relationships could fall apart if we attached that moral quandary of taking advantage of people via a difference or misrepresentation of knowledge, and it’s easy to say that’s okay so long as it’s not you who’s the victim. It’s a bipartisan evil, really, and it can be found everywhere. Maybe that means manipulative is meaningless. So here we are: dark pattern, not manipulative.
I can't find a way to disable this feature. Does anybody know how?
I've been trying to cancel my New York Times crosswords subscription for days. You cannot do it on the account management page, instead they force you to talk with their support. Their recommendation is to use the chat support but whenever I try it says: "All of our advocates are currently occupied. Please try again soon or call us now." I also tried to do it in email, of course no response for 2 days now. I'm not fr…