Not sure if this counts but yesterday I saw that skipping updates is now a Pro feature in Docker Desktop!
Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
231–240 of 542 posts
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#232Slack 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...
Can you explain why this is a dark pattern? How does slack benefit from you using the native app vs. the web app?
I don't know that they do, but they could potentially read your local files as part of telemetry, gps, nearby wifi network ssids and MAC addresses, etc.
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#233The best example of a dark pattern for me is Google's privacy settings.
Such a ridiculously convoluted and unintuitive process. The polar opposite of everything else they try to do.
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#234Earlier 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 recently cancelled without any issue... by virtue of paying for it initially with Paypal, which makes it trivial to cancel the recurring payment on my end. When I called them to cancel, and they tried giving me a runaround, I interrupted to tell them I had already cancelled the payment anyway so they literally had no choice; then I hung up. No worries! I will never subscribe to anything that doesn't accept Paypal for payment, thereby giving me the last word in controlling said payment (yes, I know a credit card would allow this, only not as easily.)
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
>> 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. That was not a nice thing to do -altering a quote, to make it appear as if I said something I didn't. I am leaving your response in its unmodified entirety, above. Look, you have your opinion, I have mine, but It's a decent app. I will be providing feedback to them -as a p…
That was not intended to be read as a literal quote or an attempt to make it appear as if you said something you didn't. That's a fairly common way of picking a message apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet. Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used. I wish we had a better notation for this. I'm sorry to have caused confusion.
Anyway, the point was just to express my disappointment in that people keep supporting a company even after complaining about their horrible dark patterns. And I don't really mean to single you out personally, it's everywhere: people complain and then keep using and rewarding the service(s) they complain about. IME this rarely leads to them becoming better over time, they just get worse over time because they can get away with it. Abuse users until the very end. It seems to work, we have so many users and more are rolling in!
Of course if you're actually giving them feedback, all the power to you. I respect your opinion too.
To give you an idea where I stand, a few days ago I was thinking of buying a keyboard for my workshop PC. I have a couple Planck EZs and they're decent keyboards. So I went over to the ZSA site, started reading about their new keyboard (Moonlander), and... MODAL POPUP ADVERTISING A MAGAZINE[1]! Now I remember the time when browsers started adding popup blockers built-in, and everyone (except scummy advertisers) rejoiced. So I find it disturbing, disgusting, and extremely disrespectful to bring back popups in the form of modals. I kinda try to put my money where my mouth is, so my reaction was to unsubscribe their magazine (the way they presented it when I bought my plancks wasn't so bad) and take my shopping elsewhere.
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was not aware about this but stackoverflow shows me their consent box (and on every stack exchange site) everyday
This was driving me crazy too, turns out that my adblocker was breaking the consent box. Clicking “Accept” didn’t do anything.
The trick there is to use your adblocker to pick the consent box and hide it, and then edit the custom rule to apply to every site.
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#237The failure is is not regulators that have failed to "regulate". It is designers of the tech (browsers, Operating systems) that have failed to come up with systems that are difficult for devs to abuse.
How does Firefox stop the "impossible unsubscribe" dark pattern that NYTimes uses?
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#238Any kind of choice between "yes" and "later". That's BS. If you offer "yes" you must offer "no".
Connecting to a Microsoft Teams of Office work account from home gives you the fantastic "Use this account everywhere on your device".
It has 4 effective choices [0] with no clue about what's going to happen to your windows account and what data or remote control permissions will be sent to your organization.
[0]: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECN/Support/KB/Docs/HomePCsud...
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#239A common one is fake consent popups for system notifications. Websites need to ask for consent before sending system notifications via the Notifications API. If a user declines, that website is blocked from asking again (for obvious reasons) But many websites cheat this by showing a fake consent popup designed to mimic what the browser would show. If a user clicks "Decline" on the fake popup, the website won't show t…
This is commonly referred to as a “soft ask.” The reasons for it are not always nefarious. On some platforms you cannot provide any commentary on why you want to send push notifications and so the soft ask provides a way to give more context on the next (real) permission dialog.
I’m not saying this isn’t abused all over, but when used effectively it can provide the user with more information to decide if they want to accept or not as well as allow the website to request it again at a future time possibly for a different reason.
Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
#240Slack 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.
Long pressing and opening in a new tab works for expanding child comment threads (but not for viewing all 500+ commends under a post).
Once that stops working, I'll have to always use old.reddit on my phone, which won't be great UI on mobile - but I suppose it can't be too hard to make a Stylus stylesheet to make it usable. And once old.reddit is gone, well, that's the end of Reddit for me.