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Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

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Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#71

Post by Mixtape »

lima wrote: post #51

Slack has a fun dark pattern - they purposefully remove functionality from their web app to make you install their native app. The web app has a workspace switcher sidebar, but it only appears on ChromeOS, where you can't install the native client. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/144258/slacks-we...

Reddit is just as guilty of this. If you want to see all the comments on a thread on their mobile site, you're pushed to install their official app and presumably create an account when doing so. As far as I can tell, the best workaround is to use the desktop site.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#72

Post by inglor_cz »

lostlogin wrote: post #68
shiftpgdn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York Times does this also. As far as I can tell it's literally impossible to cancel a subscription. I had to close the card attached to my account.

Nicely timed, thank you. They have a sale on I was contemplating taking up. Nope.

I heard that as far as web cancellation of NYT goes, the Cancel button magically appears if you enter your location to be in California.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#73

Post by astrea »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #44
dmix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 10yrs ago NBA did this to me. They made it impossible to cancel a $99/m sub. Their instructions were login and go to the cancel button but the cancel button was broken and said call this number. But no one ever picked up the number. I will never buy a NBA branded thing after that obvious bullshit scam.

New York Times does this also. As far as I can tell it's literally impossible to cancel a subscription. I had to close the card attached to my account.

My girlfriend and I were both able to cancel. The number worked for us, but we had to say no through a bunch of sales pitches before we got it successfully canceled.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#74

Post by devit »

dclusin wrote: post #5

I think the biggest dark pattern is social platforms holding the browser hostage instead of opening content in the users native browser app. Social media sites are built on user generated content. By keeping users in the app like this it puts the website at an inherent disadvantage and prevents them from providing a compelling first class experience that might compete with facebook for attention, due to their inheren…

The Facebook app on my Android device doesn't do this.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#75

Post by jrockway »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #44
dmix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 10yrs ago NBA did this to me. They made it impossible to cancel a $99/m sub. Their instructions were login and go to the cancel button but the cancel button was broken and said call this number. But no one ever picked up the number. I will never buy a NBA branded thing after that obvious bullshit scam.

New York Times does this also. As far as I can tell it's literally impossible to cancel a subscription. I had to close the card attached to my account.

I'm highly in favor of making this illegal. My credit card expired and I switched my NYT subscription from through their website to through Apple (so I could cancel), and they sent my account to collections! Working with the collections agency to get it removed was easy, however.

I guess the law that I would be in favor of is twofold:

1) You must be able to cancel subscriptions from the same website that you created it from. After you cancel, the subscription must last until the end date. (So you aren't forced to set a calendar reminder for the day before.)

2) Sending an account to collections falsely should carry a 100x penalty. If they make a mistake and their billing system sends your account worth $300 to collections, they pay a $30,000 fine. Should motivate someone to write some unit tests for that.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#76

Post by dqv »

saagarjha wrote: post #49
dqv wrote: post #21

Great I'm going to submit one about how the Apple iOS store forces you to get rid of your old devices and buy new ones. They make it extremely inconvenient to find out which apps are supported on your device. They don't hide the apps that aren't, so you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see if it's compatible or not.

Isn't there a literal "Compatibility" section in the App Store listing where it tells you if the app will work on your device or not?

As a user, I should be able to have the experience of browsing an app store with only apps that are compatible with my device and OS version. As a user and average consumer, it was not obvious to me that there was a compatibility section at all because I have to scroll past reviews and app privacy to get that information.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#77

Post by thraway123412 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #47

I had an experience a couple of days ago with exactly this type of thing (I downloaded the comment form, and I'll send it in). In this case, it nearly cost the app maker a sale (I doubt they'll go out of business on the loss of my sale. As it happened, they didn't actually lose the sale). I wanted to ID some of the plants in my yard, looking for native vs. introduced, so I downloaded a couple of apps. One was a good…

> The moral of the story is that they were so big on a dark pattern, I'll be getting the subscription.

Yeah thanks for rewarding them for that.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#78

Post by orpheansodality »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
mimsee wrote: post #11

Ecommerce sites showing a "27 people are watching this right now" alongside the product but from source code it turns out to be a Math.random()

Etsy does a "Only 4 items left, but 7 people have it in their cart" or something similarly worded

That one is based on real data (I worked there for a bit), but I generally agree this pattern is exploitative

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#79

Post by lostlogin »

dqv wrote: post #30
jb1991 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see if it's compatible or no The App Store doesn’t let me download apps that are not compatible with my device.

>The App Store doesn’t let me download apps that are not compatible with my device. Let's not split hairs over this. I just got rid of my iPad that does. You tap "get" on the app and after doing something for 5-10 seconds it pops up a modal that says it's not compatible. Why was the app store showing apps to me that are not compatible or, rather, why was there no way to filter out the ones that are not compatible?

I’m not sure what I want with this - on MacOS it’s goddamn infuriating trying to download an OS that you want to install on a machine that isn’t the one you are browsing from.

You can’t just use the App Store and end up doing all sorts of horrible things.

I’ve commented on this before and had people send me links that show you can do it in the US App Store, but I can’t from NZ.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#80

Post by Osiris »

nitrogen wrote: post #70
thow-01187 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does this even more egregiously with Android - my default browser is Firefox, but any links from Google News, Google Assistant and other Google software open in Chrome.

I wish Firefox provided two intents (does Android still call it that?), one for normal browsing and one for private browsing. Then any app that opens a link doesn't automatically get your active cookies from your main browser if you don't want it to.

I use Firefox Focus as my default. It does this. No tabs, no cookies.
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