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

Post by gundmc » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

elithrar wrote: post #159

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.

If your billing address is in California, the NYT do let you cancel online. They intentionally make it extremely high friction.

Post by smolder » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #170

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.

Paying for news in 2021 is a lot like paying for porn in 2021. Who does that.

Post by kop316 » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #199

zemo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Etsy users put things in their cart to bookmark them. I haven't been there for six years now, but one of the problems I worked on at Etsy was getting people to stop using their cart as a bookmarking tool. While I was there I worked on the functionality to fave an item as well as the functionality to add items to a List of favorites. There was another tool called Treasuries for this purpose that we phased out, so ther…

users continued to put things in their cart "so they wouldn't forget them". It was a very frustrating result; this was the exact behavior we were hoping that Lists would eliminate. My wife does this, not just to Etsy, but on all kinds of e-commerce sites. So I apologize on her behalf. I suspect that it's related that she's also one of those people who will never bookmark a web page. Instead, she keeps a hundred tabs…

Post by bogwog » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

fpig wrote: post #7

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…

What is good about web sites trying to force users to use their app instead? That itself one of the worst dark patterns out there. Edit: If my comment looks confusing, the comment I replied to has been edited. "compelling first class experience" is really a more vague term for "web sites being able to push their app on users"

Post by jimktrains2 » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

the_pwner224 wrote: post #240

Mixtape wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.