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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

#141

Post by kerkeslager »

_vertigo wrote: post #133
ryandrake wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At what point does the constant, ever-present, insistent barrage of annoying become significant to you?

People are literally committing suicide because of code software developers write. Not for ICE or despotic regimes, but for Facebook.

Now I'm not sure a ransom signup pattern reaches that level, but the idea that dark patterns can't reach that level isn't in evidence. While the impact of a piece of software you write on a given individual is usually small, a decision made in software has the power to reach many more people than a decision made by a doctor about a specific patient.

Software developers need to take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming their bosses or society for their actions. What we do, does matter.

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

#142

Post by qudat »

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…

This has been a pet peeve of mine as well. I avoid sites that require logins. I’ve been experimenting with alternate authentication/authorization mechanisms.

It’s a major reason why I created https://prose.sh to explore what’s possible. We don’t require an email and only ask for it on https://feeds.sh because it’s an rss-to-email notification service.

Read only websites and write SSH apps are pretty congruent to the HN bubble.

There’s an added benefit that only people that can open a terminal can create an account.

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

#143

Post by esafak »

geraldwhen wrote: post #108
Badumtss8 wrote: post #95

Earlier 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.

Not really. There has always been shareware, aka trial demos.

Those were only utilities and games, not enterprise software.

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

#144

Post by Brian_K_White »

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.

I don't demand anything for free. I'll use it but go ahead and don't offer a service instead, won't bother me at all. User-abuse is not justified by calling usage service-abuse.

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

#145

Post by nvader »

Bluecobra wrote: post #33

Glad this post wasn’t hosted on Substack, I really hate that nag window asking me to sign up (thanks Kill Sticky!).

I was one of today's lucky ten thousand[0] because you cited Kill Sticky. I have just enabled it on my browsers and look forward to a much improved web experience.

Thank you.

[0] https://xkcd.com/1053/

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

#146

Post by kelnos »

geraldwhen wrote: post #108
Badumtss8 wrote: post #95

Earlier 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.

Not really. There has always been shareware, aka trial demos.

Fair, but I don't think this negates the overall point, that people actually paid for software, and it was usually a one-time fee (often with the choice to pay again later for upgrades, or continue to use the old version forever). The "try before you buy" and expiring nature of shareware was nearly always known at the time of download, before investing time in using the software.

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

#147

Post by kelnos »

kredd wrote: post #79
falcolas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

What happened to the idea of winning because you make a superior product? Why is it necessary to play dirty tricks on your users to win? If a market is that saturated, and product so trivial to build that it's hard to differentiate, maybe don't participate in that market?

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

#148

Post by kayodelycaon »

kerkeslager wrote: post #138
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.

Great. I have a disability and jobs I can do are difficult to find. The moral high ground is just a little bit harder to hold when your medical care isn't at stake.

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

#149

Post by kelnos »

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…

> And if you lose your job over not implementing a dark pattern, was it a job worth having?

Not everyone can afford to lose their job over their principles. It's a sad state of affairs, definitely. This is what we get for allowing employers to have so much power over us.

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

#150

Post by zzo38computer »

Modified3019 wrote: post #38
badwolf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're forever on their "mailing list" because they don't process unsubscribes, since they probably just manually upload a .csv of everyone every time they want to send something to you, whether you ever opted in, or not.

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 each one.

I can also easily send from any address by the -r switch.

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