> But when looking specifically at the dark patterns that power users are most likely to complain about, it's unclear that they would help DAU/MAU much, if at all. Casual users might not complain overtly all that much, but they're almost certainly discouraged by many such practices.
Power users of sites like Reddit are already hooked. They’re already logged in, already have an app installed, and they don’t see all of the nags and pop-ups that appear to users who aren’t logged in.
It’s the unregistered users and those who aren’t logged in who have to suffer the nags and pop-ups and limitations. And as the site constantly reminds them, they can fix the problem by downloading the app and joining the ranks of trackable users.
When a website makes their money from advertising, user metrics are king. The more app installs, DAUs, and unique registered users you can show, the more money you can collect from advertisers. Advertisers would rather show their ad once to 1000 people than 100 times to 10 people. They want to use unique user counts, not just guesses based on volatile IP address, to support that.
As a result, it’s more beneficial for a company to alienate 1 user who won’t register (and therefore won’t contribute to metrics) in exchange for gaining 1 other user who will register. If I had to guess, I suspect Reddit is gaining more like 10 or more users for every 1 user who is alienated.
The unfortunate reality is that when it comes to free sites and services, power users (who generally install ad blockers or have been trained to ignore ads) can cost more than they bring in revenue. It’s the casual users who don’t have ad blockers and don’t have any aversion to ads that ultimately bring the revenue.