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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

#81

Post by ljm »

duxup wrote: post #77
fishtoaster wrote: post #43

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. S…

We want everything for free and we get what we deserve. The web is a brutal place for everyone. I’m not a fan of these choices but we as users demand a lot for free and sites are going to do what they can to try to survive.

Not really - the market tempts you with free to hook you in. You cannot honestly say that the market has asked for every abusive free product that existed.

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

#82

Post by reaperducer »

63 wrote: post #11
scohesc wrote: post #7

Adobe's web-based JPG to PNG converter is exactly like this. Upload a JPG, hit convert - it uploads the file, processes it on their end, and then refuses to give you the result until you "sign up for a free adobe account that we conveniently didn't tell you about until now!" Similar enough - some shopping websites will grab your email address when you start doing a guest checkout but eventually decide not to purchase…

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then ag…

Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it.

It is in modern operating systems. Maybe not Windows, but modern operating systems like macOS have it built in.

You can do it a number of ways, including using Automator, Preview, or even access it from the Finder. I did it about 30 times today.

Select file > right click > Quick Service > Convert

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

#83

Post by duxup »

ljm wrote: post #81
duxup wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want everything for free and we get what we deserve. The web is a brutal place for everyone. I’m not a fan of these choices but we as users demand a lot for free and sites are going to do what they can to try to survive.

Not really - the market tempts you with free to hook you in. You cannot honestly say that the market has asked for every abusive free product that existed.

Users don’t pay up front.

You don’t get any traction that way.

User behavior is a part of this mess.

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

#85

Post by burnished »

miki123211 wrote: post #64

I don't really understand who this post is addressed to. The people that decide to do this just want more money. they won't stop because of some rant by a random stranger on the internet. The programmers who implement this have to do what their boss tells them to, or change jobs, and this isn't something worth changing jobs over. Everybody else already knows that it's a thing, knows why it happens and can't do anythi…

What a bizarre attitude. If you change people's minds they behave differently.

Hell even in your example, there is a difference between some programmer who tells themselves this and some person who raises a stink; suddenly doing unethical shit slows you down, costs political capital, and approaches being more trouble than its worth. Fewer shit things will get done because there will be less energy to pursue them.

I'm not even suggesting you go out and be some citizen activist - just be normal. You'd have feedback for other kinds of stupid idea.

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

#87

Post by wruza »

spdif899 wrote: post #73
wruza wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hopefully, the fact that the system would create its own loop, and would rely on the accuracy and usefulness of that loop. If it served inaccurate info to users, they might be tricked into opening something they wouldn't have, at which point they would lose trust in the tool upon seeing the thing it's meant to protect them from.

Not sure if we’re talking about the same. It’s clear that one could block reviews from a bad reviewer and e.g. subscribe to another one. But those who game the system will promote their own reviewer accounts and drown real useful ones in low karma via botnets, making them non-discoverable for new users. It means money to them, and it doesn’t cost much, so it’s basically free money in doing that for sites which would want to pay for a good position in such system. It’s inevitable and there are tens to hundreds of examples of third-party review sites out there. The loop is fragile by design.

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

#88

Post by Sylamore »

fishtoaster wrote: post #43

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. S…

The faster a web site asks me for an email address determines how fast I bail on even looking at their product/tool, or if I have no choice I put in a bogus email address to get past it, if it is one of those damn forms that sends you a link I use one of the various public inbox/temporary email address sites so I don't have to deal with the attempts to bring me back into the conversion funnel when I was just seeking information.

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

#89

Post by Gigachad »

Sylamore wrote: post #88
fishtoaster wrote: post #43

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. S…

The faster a web site asks me for an email address determines how fast I bail on even looking at their product/tool, or if I have no choice I put in a bogus email address to get past it, if it is one of those damn forms that sends you a link I use one of the various public inbox/temporary email address sites so I don't have to deal with the attempts to bring me back into the conversion funnel when I was just seeking…

The site owners don’t care. If something works on 99% of people and pushes away 1%, they will keep doing it.

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

#90

Post by Gigachad »

rjbwork wrote: post #58
Modified3019 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got done switching from gmail to fastmail, and it solves this problem beautifully with a nifty feature allowing me to create a new proxy (“masked”) email address for every website but have the mail show up in my mail address. There’s a limit, but it’s like 600+ or something. So when the email gets sold and I start getting spammed, I can easy kill it, and also know who the culprit was. This one is paid, but I’m…

I do this on gmail myself. I have my own domain and pay for gmail on it. I have a wildcard set to go to my mailbox and wildcard stuff gets sorted per usual. So for instance, if I buy something at target, I use/sign in w/ target@mydomain.com. I know I should probably get off of gmail, but it's a really good service for my needs. It's also reasonably priced and there's no limit for those email addresses since it just c…

I used to do this but ended up in too many situations on the phone where someone says “what’s your email” and I can’t remember what email I gave them and I look like an idiot who doesn’t know what their email is.

Now I just mark any marketing email as spam and let the email service automatically move all future emails to spam.

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