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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

#151

Post by fragmede »

zzo38computer wrote: post #150
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…

> 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 ... So when the email gets sold and I start getting spammed, I can easy kill it, and also know who the culprit was I do something like that too, but I have my own SMTP server. It doesn't use + it is just an entirely different email address for…

And not just airbnb@example.com, because that can be guessed, but airbnb_itjeof@example.com, such that you can be sure it leaked from their database.

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

#153

Post by stubish »

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…

> 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.

I think this is the fundamental problem. Too many people trying to increase conversion in their onboarding funnels, crowding out people who want to put interesting stuff on the internet for purposes other than farming people for money.

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

#154

Post by tavavex »

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…

It's oddly impressive how small-scale Adobe went with enforcing these registrations. Considering that converting between JPG and PNG is such a granular and common task that there are hundreds of websites just for that, in addition to it being built into almost every major OS.. it's very petty to ask for registration for something this small, rather than leave it open, like their color wheel tool.

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

#155

Post by parentheses »

I benefit a lot from free internet services. This is preying on that convention.

The web would be a very different place if people felt OK paying for the value brought into their lives by services that are free today. I also feel that in that world, this would not be necessary.

So, the state of things is the state of things... :/

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

#158

Post by n_ary »

parentheses wrote: post #155

I benefit a lot from free internet services. This is preying on that convention. The web would be a very different place if people felt OK paying for the value brought into their lives by services that are free today. I also feel that in that world, this would not be necessary. So, the state of things is the state of things... :/

> The web would be a very different place if people felt OK paying for the value brought into their lives by services that are free today

I believe to contrary. A lot of services paid-only doesn’t have a decent customer support even and subpar product while registering billions in profits. We can always assume “what-if” about paying, but if it was very easy for getting people to pay up, we’d have way too many subpar things and standards would be bottom the drain. I like that services work up their standards and people interested will be very happy to pay. See kagi search, fastmail, google/fb ads, netflix, all vps hosting. If you offer some good value, you’ll get paid, if you are dubious, paying will just increase the bottom line and promote bad behavior from vendors.

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

#160

Post by n_ary »

GabeIsko wrote: post #127

This is why tempmail exists.

Sadly, the most shady ones will not accept anything that is not one of the gmail, outlook, yahoo and some doesn’t even accept custom domains, only gmails!

There is a lot of cheap (and even free) APIs that can accurately guess when you enter a fake e-mail! A place I worked previously used several of such APIs and generated consensus among all to determine if a signup would be allowed and eventually only focused on “must be a gmail” because few of these APIs decided to ramp up prices post COVID-19.

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