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The 'Fuck You' Pattern

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Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#441

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

EamonnMR wrote: post #251
wnkrshm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate Pinterest with a passion. If you want to find reference images for whatever topic, all you get is the medium res crap with a 'make an account' pop-up instead of the original source they stole it from. I think alphabet or whatever will acquire it in the near future (or have they already?) because there is just no other explanation for letting Pinterest poison image search that much.

Image search is practically dead and Pintrest singlehandedly killed it. I just use Wikimedia Commons now.

works fine on DuckDuckGo

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#442

Post by dont__panic »

shrimpx wrote: post #246
bob1029 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you join the dev team for a service you like and use, and then knowingly destroy it? You start with priorities that are fucked up before you even interviewed for the job. The world of today is not like the world of 10+ years ago. In 2001, if you met a developer, there was an exceptionally high % chance that they were fundamentally into technology in a very deep & personal way. In 2021, you will find that mos…

I think this is because "tech" is quickly becoming a business utility, and every company is becoming a "tech company" just by augmenting its business with an app stack. "Tech" has become watered-down by proliferating everywhere, and accordingly developers have grown in number and diminished in average passion and skill. Coupled with this, everyone knows these tech-driven ad-distribution companies posing as "social me…

It is a losing and neverending battle, too -- new C-levels come into your company, new managers and directors cycle in, perpetually looking for low-hanging fruit to up usage and profitability in their fiefdom at the expense of long-term goals and faithful users. You can explain once or twice how you're not going to implement some dark pattern, but what about the tenth time? Or the hundredth? Or the thousandth? And even if you manage to block it every single time, that same rot in the company will eventually wear down other reasons you'd like to work at the company, whether it's compensation or cool underlying tech or culture or remote-friendliness, and then you'll leave, and who will stop the dark patterns now?

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#443

Post by dont__panic »

VRay wrote: post #270
vimax wrote: post #72

Where are the developers implementing this stuff on large social media, especially Reddit who had such a user friendly founding? Surely they're here on HN. I'd love to hear their thinking in going along with this, assuming it's something better than "fuck the users I want to get paid." How do you join the dev team for a service you like and use, and then knowingly destroy it?

Good news, my friend, you can see their sentiment right here in this very thread! Scroll up or down and feast your eyes. My personal story: When I interviewed for a job at Amazon many years ago, all the recruiter e-mail kept going into my trash. I finally realized that I'd just directed *@amazon.com into my trash years earlier because they kept filling my inbox with so much useless bullshit, and I'd always hated the…

Ah, the old "destroy it from the inside" strategy. Except instead of actively fighting anything, you recognize that rotting the company from the inside out with apathy while collecting the beefiest paycheck possible is your strongest weapon.

Bold strategy. Though I have to wonder if weaponizing your career in that way has dangerous implications for your self-esteem?

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#444

Post by Wowfunhappy »

XorNot wrote: post #433
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't particularly care if companies have my data. However, I vehemently don't want them to use it for algorithmic recommendations—including ads—because it puts me in a filter bubble. All these technology companies are making assumptions about the type of person I am, and then molding me into that person. I can't learn about topics I don't see, so if the tech giants are convinced I like technology and c…

My recent Amazon experience when I bought a stereo audio mixer: "Here, look at 50 other stereo audio mixers even though we know you already bought one! And also have data showing you viewed all of these and didn't buy them!" On some level the way company's advertise is basically an argument against them having my data being a threat, because they can't manage to come up with anything better then that, in a product sp…

But see, they're still putting you in a box! Now you will be more likely to encounter stereo mixers than other types of products. Sure, it's obvious and on a small scale, but when every website is doing it, what's the cumulative affect?

Choice is good. I've certainly groaned at my share of ads on traditional television, and so I can understand why someone might find targeted ads preferable. I just don't share that desire!

Amazon in particular irks me because they don't give you a choice, no matter how deep you dig into settings! You can turn off browsing history, but it's stored in a cookie per-device and also seems to randomly come back on sometimes. Even then, they'll still use your purchase history for recommendations. I used to manually go through and mark everything I bought as a gift, and this worked for a while—but then Amazon apparently decided I'd given to many gifts and started ignoring the signal.

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#445

Post by 6502nerdface »

XorNot wrote: post #428
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #57

"Wow, fuck you. I just wanted to look at cats." "Well, fuck you, too. We're here to sell ads." It's not about dark patterns, that's just a second-order effect. It was never about dark patterns. This is the implied agreement. You understand it, or you don't. And if you don't, I guess you haven't been on the web in the past decade or something. What? You thought it was fair that a company spends millions in technical i…

So how does this explain why Windows 10, which I have paid like $150 for per license, is now infested with ads, tracking and online presence - and close to impossible to buy without that. They aren't even trying to put a $ figure on what they think it's worth - because they can't be stopped from doing it. There is no implied agreement, it's exactly as stated.

I guess someone could argue that it only costs $150 because of the ads. Windows 95 cost well over twice that when it was launched (inflation adjusted). Maybe in the same way that airfares are way cheaper than they were in the 90s, but with much crappier included service.

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#447

Post by sekushi »

> It sort of worked, but I wasn’t able to scroll any further on the page.

Just an FYI the author needed to remove the CSS attribute on the body? element "no-scroll"

I've noticed Instagram's A/B testing however only so far as it prevents users from seeing "too much" without logging in. The case OP mentions is the least fool proof as there are many images left on the page after you get rid of the obstacles (modal, dark modal screen covering page, and no scroll css attribute). The other more robust method I've seen involves Instagram only sending the amount of images to the browser they want you to see

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#448

Post by jonathankoren »

6502nerdface wrote: post #445
XorNot wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does this explain why Windows 10, which I have paid like $150 for per license, is now infested with ads, tracking and online presence - and close to impossible to buy without that. They aren't even trying to put a $ figure on what they think it's worth - because they can't be stopped from doing it. There is no implied agreement, it's exactly as stated.

I guess someone could argue that it only costs $150 because of the ads. Windows 95 cost well over twice that when it was launched (inflation adjusted). Maybe in the same way that airfares are way cheaper than they were in the 90s, but with much crappier included service.

Let’s be honest though. Windows is supported through OEM licenses. M$ (yeah, I’m dusting this off here, due to the context) isn’t strapped for cash.

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#449

Post by salamandersauce »

recursive wrote: post #349
specialist wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I organize a puppy meetup. Right now via a group SMS. Sub-optimal. Sharing event pics is flakey (mix of android and ios). The responses (LOL, hearts, etc) become their own text messages (?!). Etc. Since some of us have Instagram, I thought to try it, if only to share pics. Sign up was brutal. I can't figure out how to use my phone account on my desktop. Sharing existing pics sucks . Taking pics with Instagram sucks .…

Is this way I always get text messages from one of my friends that say > Liked "{$ENTIRE_CONTENTS_OF_PREVIOUS_MESSAGE}"

It's iMessage garbage spewing into SMS. On iOS you'll get a little heart or some other animation, to "support" this with SMS they give the reaction and the whole quote.

Re: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

#450

Post by zwog »

NavinF wrote: post #103
pram wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part is clicking a link, loading a page, and it just says “Something broke” Twitter does this too. How the fuck is it even possible?

Glad it's not just me. Twitter seems to break more often when a page is loaded from the browser cache, but I can't pin down any other pattern for the “Something broke” errors on both mobile and desktop. Will Twitter ever have more than two 9s of reliability as measured from the user's POV?

I literally can't open Twitter links on my phone (Firefox as browser). It always says "something went wrong" and reloading a bunch of times doesn't help either. If I use the same link on Desktop (or change my phone browser's user agent) it works. I think its a fuck you pattern to get me to install the app.
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