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Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

iamvishnu.com

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Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#41

Post by andrei_says_ »

JohnFen wrote: post #19
JoshTriplett wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grab a copy of netpbm or GraphicsMagick that's compiled for Windows. Or, grab a free image editor ( https://www.getpaint.net/ is popular for Windows), open in one format, save in the other.

This. I honestly don't understand why people use online image converters when there are high-quality OSS programs that will do the job locally. I'll bet that the majority of the online converters are using these programs to do the actual conversion anyway.

Tinypng consistently creates better looking jpg and ping files than the Photoshop’s exporting algorithm- at the same filesize.

I have optimage and imageoptim on MacOS too and they are good enough at this point.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#42

Post by remram »

th33ngineer wrote: post #39

Unfortunately most of the websites willing to engage in this are already aware that this is a user-hostile pattern.

It's hostile to the people who don't want to sign up. In other words, it drives away the "free loaders" and increases conversions. I have to agree, I hate to say this but they are probably doing this because it works.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#43

Post by fishtoaster »

I hate those too.

On the other hand, I've been adjacent to the decision to add them before. You're under a lot of pressure to increase conversion in your onboarding funnel, so you test out moving your email capture up a bit in your conversion flow (ie to before you deliver results) and it works! Conversion increases throughout the funnel! So you keep it.

Dark patterns like this persist because they measurably work. Some people (you and me) get extra pissed off, but we're in the small minority relative to the people who sign up at an elevated rate. :(

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#44

Post by wruza »

rlpb wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way for users to share the websites that do this and other dark patterns so that I can avoid them. Effectively a reputation system. Search engines used to do this, but apparently not any more. We need a replacement.

Any reputation system is prone to manipulation, with its uselessness correlated to popularity.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#45

Post by CamJN »

flangola7 wrote: post #26
datavirtue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of big tech is checking phone numbers against sophisticated databases to determine if it is possible for an individual to have that number associated with their cell phone device. If it isn't a real mobile number you are not getting in.

Where do these databases even get their data? IIRC the phone network is very opaque compared to IP addresses and internet routing.

Every carrier in canada and the USA sells this info for insultingly low prices.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#46

Post by JohnFen »

s-xyz wrote: post #22

I understand the point; ideally you want to have some free content before you actually need to sign up. However, when integrating a paid solution like OpenAI for example, the tricky part is to limit the number of free requests to prevent going bankrupt by one user. I can imagine that this would be a potential reason to ask for a sign up.

I think you might have missed the point.

The complaint isn't that an email address was asked for, it's that the ask didn't happen up front. Having someone spend time doing something and then asking for an email address before giving the results is the Bad Thing here.

I don't think the author would have complained if the email address was asked for prior to him starting to actually use the service.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#47

Post by zikduruqe »

frfl wrote: post #32
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including your email address. And then you abandon the cart, because it doesn't make sense for you to pay $50 for shipping. But then you get those emails 'you forgot something'. No I didn't.

Solution to this is to use a masked email or at the very least add a `+` tag so you can block it easily or know who's the source of the junk mail. Fastmail offers this feature, and I think 1password might. The `+` tag should be possible with any provider, `me+hn@example.com` Of course now you have to have a way to keep track of what email you gave to what company. I usually do `firstname_company/website@` to make it…

the '+' is valid according to RFC822 from 1982. It's not purely per service provider.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#48

Post by wruza »

squarefoot wrote: post #35
rlpb wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way for users to share the websites that do this and other dark patterns so that I can avoid them. Effectively a reputation system. Search engines used to do this, but apparently not any more. We need a replacement.

What about a browser extension doing exactly that: a distributed user populated database, karma based abuse prevention (because it will be abused) and a big indicator that turns on from yellow to red according to the level of garbage the site is throwing against its users.

What would stop them from abusing the karma itself and/or buying “influence” points from popular users?

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#49

Post by tamimio »

Yesterday I was using a website to generate a logo (not mentioning them they don’t deserve any publicity), and after entering the details, refining what to emphasize on, description, my email and logo requirements, they generated some and refused to show it unless I pay, not just signing up.. literal scumbags, why would I pay before even seeing the logo ffs, what if I didn’t like it? How about all the time and details I put there?!

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#50

Post by sublinear »

TheAngryCanuck wrote: post #27
nickthegreek wrote: post #9

My biggest current peeve is not allowing me to see shipping costs until I’ve given basically all my information to a company before I’ve checked out.

This actually worked out to my advantage! I did this on a site, found out that they didn't ship to Canada so I abandoned the cart. I got all the oh no emails so I emailed them back telling them I CAN'T buy their stuff because you WON'T ship to me. Couple of days later the company CEO emails me back. First he apologises (bonus points to a Canadian), promises to fix the cart abandon logic, and offers to ship me 2 of th…

That sounds like a fine resolution, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Far too many businesses are being run by people completely out of the loop.

Emails, especially from the CEO, are legally binding.

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