Not exactly the same situation but I immediately uninstalled the Arc browser after it auto played some video with music and asked me to create an account before I could even see the UI.
Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
161–170 of 217 posts
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#162I 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.
>Have some respect for your users, developers. ‘Cause you’re one of them.
No, they're not, not for most devs. Most devs don't use the stuff they produce. They're just hired guns, building something they're told to make. If they refuse to implement what they're told, they'll be fired for insubordination.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users have always paid upfront for software, until software companies with lots of capital started this non sense. All copies of Microsoft Office were paid upfront. Users are just reacting to what the software industry did.
Indie shareware vendors predate "software companies with lots of capital" by decades. The big fishes seldom innovate anything.
Shareware is not SaaS/subscription-based software. That's the bad part, not "try before you buy".
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#164I 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.
@duxup Please don't try to justify this despicable behavior. You're not making the world a better place.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#165Earlier 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.
Yup, same with Microsoft - they won the desktop OS and office productivity markets thanks, in big part, to their tacit approval of individual-level pirating of Windows and Office.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
I would prefer if you during page load first rendered the most obvious call for action and then, at the exact moment I try to click it you dynamically render another action button at the exact position of the first, bringing me to instead go to the register newsletter form while making me feel extremely enraged, sry, engaged. Happy, no. Engaged (in rage), very much so.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#167Earlier 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…
> Which means there's more to the formula;
Yes: the market isn't 100% instant and efficient, so here and there, the kind of companies you describe can survive, for a while. Some are in the process of being outcompeted. Others survive in the cracks, not worth even considering to compete with, the same way you're not competing for food with ants. And some just pretend to be nice.
Point being, GP's statement is true in general - it's the overall behavior dictated by the economic system. "Reality has surprising amount of detail", so there are always exceptions to any rule or pattern, but they don't invalidate the rule: those exceptions survive because they're rare - they won't grow in amount to replace the regular case.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#168I 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.
Why does everything has to become paid? The web is large enough that the output delta can be held back by investment rather than pushed by it.
For example the image conversion site can be replaced with instructions how to do it on device.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#169Yesterday 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 detail…
Imagine buying an ikea cabinet for cheap and after assembling 90% they want a large sum for the missing bits.
Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups
#170I 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... :/
People are ready to pay for something if they find it useful and worthy. But the problem is not clearly saying this beforehand. I invest a lot of time on the website and to my surprise it asks me for a payment - that's like cheating.
Imagine I spent a lot of time writing a story in a brand new text editing software, and when trying to save the document, it asking me to pay to save the file!