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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

#131

Post by gochi »

falcolas wrote: post #129
Nifty3929 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely it! In the marketplace, only results matter and companies that deliver them displace those that don’t. In this case, result mean profit or at least conversions. The same was true for banks who were over extended on risky loans in the late aughts. If you didn’t do that, you were criticized by analysts and Wall Street for being too conservative, and anyway look how much these other banks are making.…

> In the marketplace, only results matter and companies that deliver them displace those that don’t. In this case, result mean profit or at least conversions. Were this the unalterable truth, mom and pop shops wouldn't exist. Companies who invest profits back into themselves would not exist. Public companies who pay living wages wouldn't exist. But they all do. Which means there's more to the formula; and that formul…

All 3 structures you've noted participate in immoral behaviors, some of them far more grave in impact than psychological trickery.

Do you believe businesses/people out there have the intention to disrespect their users? Most often, that's not the case. Hence, we need regulations to combat good intentions gone awry (and most certainly bad intentions).

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

#132

Post by kredd »

falcolas wrote: post #126
kredd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the playing field between the companies are on the same level (reads: dark patters are deemed illegal, and I think it should be!), or you are in some sort of monopolistic industry, to my understanding you will lose to your competitors. I've never been in a situation to implement such patterns, but play these mental gymnastics to give the implementor some benefit of the doubt.

> but play these mental gymnastics to give the implementor some benefit of the doubt. No. Using psychological tricks to get people to act against their best interests is immoral. “But if I don’t implement it, someone else will.” That’s merely a justification to make you sleep easier at night. Let that someone else do it. And if you lose your job over not implementing a dark pattern, was it a job worth having? If they…

It is immoral for you and I, but most of engineers and product managers don’t think so. “It’s a feature that’s been implemented by everyone else and it works” would be the argument during its proposal. If the users really opposed to it they would vote with their browser by closing the tab (like I do). It’s like calling “heavy JS websites” as a burden on user, when most of the users, time upon time, showed how they don’t care.

“Let your employer fire you” argument also doesn’t sit well with me. Like this is not some hardcore feature that will be tasked out to some principal engineer with decades of experience that can find a job easily. Some recent grad will be just labeled as “not a team player” and sidelined. If we want a fair game, we should demote these kind of features (and stuff like 20 clicks to cancel your subscription) in one way or another.

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

#133

Post by _vertigo »

ryandrake wrote: post #106
burnished wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's ultimately on developers as the last, ethical line of defense: They're the ones typing in the code at the end of the day. Without them, the bosses couldn't implement these things. Unfortunately, for every good developer who draws a line in the sand, there's Bob, two desks down, who is happy to implement whatever dark pattern boss tells him to. Fuck Bob. What we really need is some kind of Hippocratic Oath for So…

I don't think asking for a sign up is unethical, at least not on the same magnitude as the actual Hippocratic Oath is concerned with. I'd envision the Hippocratic Oath for Software might have something to say about writing software for ICE or despotic regimes but not asking the user to sign up. One is unethical, the other is just annoying.

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

#134

Post by bpodgursky »

falcolas wrote: post #56
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…

Just because a psychological trick works doesn’t mean you must use it. Have some respect for your users, developers. ‘Cause you’re one of them.

It's not really a trick, it's just that the vast majority of freemium users are negative-value.

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

#135

Post by DANmode »

duxup wrote: post #83
ljm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Users do what they think their corporate IT or manager will let them do.

Which, by policy, is often little.

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

#136

Post by data-ottawa »

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…

Would it be better if I hold off until you scroll?

After all, you’re more engaged then!

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

#137

Post by porridgeraisin »

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…

The most trivial solution is to open it in paint and save as -> destination format.

The most comprehensive solution is to download imagemagick.

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

#138

Post by kerkeslager »

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…

> 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.

I disagree. I've been very intentional about the places I work and have managed to build a successful career while never implementing a dark pattern.

"I was just following orders" is not an excuse. Take responsibility for your actions.

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

#139

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

I dunno who it was addressed to. But if it changes the mind of people that accept being submitted into refusing to submit, it's a win.

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

ljm wrote: post #116
Dalewyn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the users definitely play a role here. Remember how it became a meme to just pirate Adobe software because they were so bloody expensive? Well Adobe wants their earnings, regardless if their desire is justified, so Adobe and the rest of the industry changed gears to a model that greatly inhibits piracy and, at least in theory, reduces the upfront cost a customer has to pay in exchange for a higher cost over time.

Adobe is basically a monopoly and it is well documented that they allowed piracy because it meant that the pirates would become dependent on their tools. Doesn’t matter how you edited a photo technically, it is still photoshopped.

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