38 People are looking at this post right now • Hacker News Board

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#131

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #127

poisonborz wrote: post #10

So 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.

> tasked a PO, who tasked a team, and a frontend developer implemented it - and in this chain, in the end, everyone complied You have only worked on big projects, right? This could be on developer. It could also be a FE change that was supposed to be hooked up to the backend, but went out early.

This would not surprise me. If I had a dollar for all the stupid crap I PRd that got caught by peers. If its a small team with no peer review... Whoops. Hard to say why this is till they change it.

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#132

Post by kbenson » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:59 AM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #99

Insanity wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Last time I had a phone screening with the, I learned their entire codebase was in Perl, with no plans on migration to anything else. There were almost no unit tests anywhere. Most developers could push directly to production. Everything the girl on the phone said was horrifying and I decided not to continue. Their recruiter kept trying to call me over Skype though, and they offer more than most other companies of th…

> their entire codebase was in Perl, with no plans on migration to anything else. There were almost no unit tests anywhere. Most developers could push directly to production.

One of these things is not like the others. Not liking Perl is a valid personal choice, but doesn't say much about the codebase. The others are telling though. More so if it's true given that Perl has a very heavy culture of testing (the TAP protocol comes from Perl, and Perl is known for being very test heavy in its module ecossytem), which means they would be going against that culture to have no unit tests.

That said, I'm not sure if we should consider "the girl on the phone" doing the screening as knowledgeable about the process. That description doesn't convey that you thought very highly of her, so I'm not sure why we should take her word as authoritative...

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#133

Post by rolltiide » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:02 AM UTC

nothrabannosir wrote: post #66

rolltiide wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always get in the seat of the defense. I would absolutely have made a few headless browsing bots masquarading as users just incase this scenario occurred Look your honor the logs say other users, “people”, were looking regardless of our random function

Would admitting to gaming those numbers make your defence somehow stronger? Or would you withhold that information, and perjure yourself?

Depends on the charge and the consequences of those charges

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#134

Post by mberning » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

tomxor wrote: post #38

The responses in the redit thread are interesting: So many people claim they have experienced legitimate versions while making a purchase, although provide questionable evidence to support that it was valid. Is this some psychological bias for buyers?

This absolutely works on some sites. Home Depot is a legitimate example. If their app says there are 3 of something on the shelf there usually is exactly that many. If you buy it and check back in the app the inventory goes down immediately.

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#135

Post by kbenson » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #120

jchw wrote: post #29

A dark pattern implies something that is intentionally misleading. This is just lying. This is not a dark pattern because it’s Worse.

Lying is also intentionally misleading, so I'm not sure if your conclusion makes sense. Plus I would assume recurrent lying falls under the "dark pattern" category -- it certainly isn't a good or neutral pattern.

Lying is stating something untrue as true. A dark pattern works on implicit assumptions to get people to believe something without having to state it.

Lying is fraud, plain and simple, the laws and courts nailed that hundreds of years ago. A dark patter may be fraud, or in some way illegal, or may not, depending on details and jurisdiction. Those details might also include intent. An accidentally bad UI that costs customers money is not the same as a UI that purposefully leads customers to the same situation depending on what you're trying to determine (i.e. was the law broken, or is the UI not good).

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#136

Post by tomc1985 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

Lucadg wrote: post #122

krungthep wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once I checked Agoda to get an idea of the room prices in the area I was visiting, but decided to get the room directly from reception assuming that the price would be the one I saw on Agoda minus their commision. I was wrong, the price was about 15% more expensive at reception and it didn't include breakfast. I pointed to them that I could get the room cheaper from Agoda and they told me to get it from Agoda then. I…

Yes. This happens a lot. Often it's because the Hotels don't have an proper direct booking procedure in place and getting a direct booking is a hassle for them. In many countries though they are not even allowed by Booking to give a cheaper price which shows the power they have.

> getting a direct booking is a hassle for them.

You'd think they'd be a bit more willing to take peoples' money

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#137

Post by amiga-workbench » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

tahdig wrote: post #62

I imagine sometime in 2030 when a 60 yo uncle/aunty sees this "38 people are looking at it", calmly right clicks on the HTML elements and sees the use of math.random and says "Nope, bye bye stupid website". I think these tricks are closing on their end of life as percentage of internet-native people are increasing.

The next generation are being raised on iPads, computer literacy is plummeting because they're only exposed to appliances, not real computers. It's sad, but it's good for our job security!

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#138

Post by flukus » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:27 AM UTC

boulos wrote: post #16

The 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…

A lot of hotels will also spread their stock over a lot of sites to limit overbooking and micro management. They'll put 5 rooms on booking.com, 5 on expedia, and 5 spread around a dozen other places. There's no confirmation step like with deliveroo because the industry evolved with much less real time communication. So as far as booking.com knows there is only a few left. At least that was the case >10 years ago when I worked on automating this stuff.

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#139

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:30 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #92

buboard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can't be sure they're lying. Odds are nonzero that 38 ppl were looking at that flight

It is lying. They claim something that they have no evidence for. Whether the number truly is 38 at that moment is irrelevant in this case. Because if the number was 0, 42, or 1437 they still would have made the claim that 38 were looking at that flight.

In any negotiation, nobody should take (at face value) the reported interest of the other party. A real estate agent could say a dozen people dropped by the home earlier today. You'd be foolish to believe it. You'd be foolish to believe Booking.com saying there's 1 room left, or the number of people currently looking at a webpage.

Re: 38 People are looking at this post right now

#140

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #82

burk96 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I work for Google. You can report fraudulent ads with the form here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/vio_other_aw_p...

FindHotel.com's prices are frequently understated when searching with Google Hotels. You click the link, and the price magically goes up $40, and that number still doesn't include taxes and resort fees.