finally, a use for Math.random()
What's wrong with Math.random()? I use it all the time (graphics) and it works like a charm.
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#22So some manager came up with this, tasked a PO, who tasked a team, and a frontend developer implemented it - and in this chain, in the end, everyone complied. I know it's not like murder, but especially in a field where it's so easy to hop into another job/project, one should have greater integrity.
Can't assume they don't have integrity. They might just have different moral values.
I would gladly implement this any day. Its not illegal.
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#23I like that these things are being revealed and I previously read stories that these techniques were getting less effective since more people are aware of them. That's at least half the battle. Legal punishment of this behavior is not something I think I would support since I would be worried about it being impossible or at least very hard to enforce properly.
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#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone else in that thread asks: > I wonder if they report a lower price to Google as well. Presumably for the little boxes which show up below certain Google ads with price points []. I know that's against Google Ads' policies, but has anyone heard of it happening nonetheless? [] https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2497706
Yes it happened to me, a hotel was priced significantly cheaper on Google and on their site initially. When the price went up I just called the hotel and the higher rate was their standard and only rate that they offered. The initial advertised price was never an actual option.
Isn’t that plain illegal, full stop? If that’s not the textbook definition of false advertising then I don’t know what is.
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#25finally, a use for Math.random()
What's wrong with Math.random()? I use it all the time (graphics) and it works like a charm.
Read these articles to know what is wrong with Math.random()
• https://medium.com/@betable/tifu-by-using-math-random-f1c308...
• https://hackernoon.com/how-does-javascripts-math-random-gene...
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10751396
• https://v8.dev/blog/math-random
> Many random number generators in use today are not very good. There is a tendency for people to avoid learning anything about such subroutines; quite often we find that some old method that is comparatively unsatisfactory has blindly been passed down from one programmer to another, and today’s users have no understanding of its limitations. — The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2, by Donald Knuth
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#26Yes, I think it is false advertising, so should be illegal.
The only way out of it I can think of would be: if the site could prove that some number of people, greater than 45, were hitting that specific query on that specific page, then vacuously, they could say that any number of people between 1 and 45 were also looking at the offer. But then, why wouldn't they just display "at least 45 people" or the exact number? I'm struggling to find some way of doing this which could…
The source code literally calls Math.random. I hope that defence wouldn’t fly in court, even if accidentally true.
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#27I want to add Hanlon's razor to this. Some are pointing straight to malice and intentional misleading. It wouldn’t surprise me if they wanted to make it genuinely work originally, but realised they could save a lot of money, resources and sprints just faking it in js. More laziness and “oh shit this project was bigger than we thought let’s find a shortcut” than outright malice.
That's not Hanlon's razor: they had a moment where they commit an act of fraud by intent, not by incompetent behaviour.
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#28The Twitter thread pointed to a BBC article [1] that certainly suggests that the UK’s regulators don’t think this is okay. I’ve found that Booking.com legitimately treats independent rooms as “only one left” (e.g., the B&B has named rooms, so there’s always just one of a kind for each) but I suspect any investigation into most of these sites leads to “this is full of misleading dark patterns”. [1] https://www.bbc.com…
Booking.com is horrible to use in my opinion. It is handy but you need to ignore the dark patterns on every. Single. Page.
Honestly it makes me want to use the website less, and does not urge me to buy.
Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now
#29A dark pattern implies something that is intentionally misleading. This is just lying. This is not a dark pattern because it’s Worse.
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#30There's a product I've bought regularly at Amazon, it perpetually has 3 or less left in stock, but never goes out of stock.
Also I was buying airline tickets and Delta told me there were just 2 left at this price for ... a plane nearly 70% empty.