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Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

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Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#141

Post by baddox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #121
idlewords wrote: post #8

A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. (Another good example is the Internet itself, but it's best to start small)

> A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. I don't get how people can hold that belief. It falls apart the moment you think about game theory for five minutes, or read up a Wikipedia article about externalities and tragedy of commons.

I don't believe that no beneficial government regulations exist, but I believe the net effect of government regulations is negative. And I would point to game theory (and economics more generally) to support that view.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#142

Post by TeMPOraL »

baddox wrote: post #141
TeMPOraL wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. I don't get how people can hold that belief. It falls apart the moment you think about game theory for five minutes, or read up a Wikipedia article about externalities and tragedy of commons.

I don't believe that no beneficial government regulations exist, but I believe the net effect of government regulations is negative. And I would point to game theory (and economics more generally) to support that view.

> And I would point to game theory (and economics more generally) to support that view.

Please do, this sounds interesting.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#143

Post by twistedpair »

andy_ppp wrote: post #126

I find that Ebay makes it very unclear what the fees are if you sell something; this £0.50 to list something I assume they would have to say + x percent of the say price now? Be even better if they were force to list an estimated sale price and fee...

Last time I listed something on eBay they nickled and dimed me hard, but it was clear that I was being nickled and dimed. Perhaps the only hidden fee was that you've got to pay through PayPal and take that 2-3% hit.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#144

Post by baddox »

poof131 wrote: post #39
idlewords wrote: post #8

A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. (Another good example is the Internet itself, but it's best to start small)

Yes, a good piece of regulation, but who believes in no regulation? To me, no regulation means no law, which means anarchy. And the only people who want anarchy are the same types of people who would be dead the first day it broke out. But much of the regulation in the US is regulatory capture. We need regulation for the people, not for the companies. Moving in the right direction is a challenge and we need to break…

Replace "anarchy" with "self-organization" or "decentralized governance" to make it sound a lot less scary. I've just started a pop econ book on this topic (after watching the author's video) that seems interesting so far.

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Unbound-Self-Governance-Cambri...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7K-0ohtb4Y

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#145

Post by baddox »

kzrdude wrote: post #61
poof131 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a good piece of regulation, but who believes in no regulation? To me, no regulation means no law, which means anarchy. And the only people who want anarchy are the same types of people who would be dead the first day it broke out. But much of the regulation in the US is regulatory capture. We need regulation for the people, not for the companies. Moving in the right direction is a challenge and we need to break…

Anarchy doesn't really exist. It's just that people want to go back to a state before the current contracts and laws were passed. What would happen? The same kinds of associations, rules, and laws would form again.

All self-proclaimed anarchists I am aware of oppose the state, but do not oppose associations, rules, or laws.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#146

Post by lutusp »

tormeh wrote: post #120
lutusp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the uncontroversial historical facts I posted is causing you the most personal anguish?

My problem is that while they fit the literal definition of compromise, they don't really achieve much. Those are barely ceasefires, and not much progress. So compromise without friendly relations does exist, it just really really sucks. The spirit of my criticism still stands.

> My problem is that while they fit the literal definition of compromise, they don't really achieve much.

Compared to what? The OP's contention was that "Friendly relations is a prerequisite for compromise". I proved that false. You're now changing the subject.

> So compromise without friendly relations does exist, it just really really sucks.

So the wives of the doomed Jewish men getting back their husbands really, really sucked? You need to learn a bit of history -- it's replete with valuable compromises between antagonistic parties.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#147

Post by baddox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #142
baddox wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that no beneficial government regulations exist, but I believe the net effect of government regulations is negative. And I would point to game theory (and economics more generally) to support that view.

> And I would point to game theory (and economics more generally) to support that view. Please do, this sounds interesting.

I think the primary idea is that the economic issues that plague markets also plague governments. Public choice is the discipline of applying economic principles to governments. You can't treat government as a black box to solve economic issues without recognizing that economic issues affect government as well. For example, to theorize a law, regulation, or form of government to solve some economic problem like the public good problem, one must consider that "good government" is also a public good. It's true that a society might fail to produce a public good like flood control systems. But it's necessary to argue why, if the society cannot produce the flood control systems, why it should be expected to produce a government that will produce the flood control systems.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#148

Post by joedavison »

Crito wrote: post #90
dzhiurgis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't: * Can't get shipping charges before the last step (after selecting the credit card which implies I am about to pay) * Sneaking in Prime * Fucked up search

The first I agree with, but I'm not sure what you mean by "Sneaking in Prime". "Fucked up search" is almost certainly not deliberate. I suspect it costs them a good deal of sales when people cannot find what they wanted to purchase. I don't think you can call that an 'dark pattern' unless it is deliberate and they are working some sort of angle.

It means they try to trick you into joining Prime, every time you make a purchase.

Case in point:

Yesterday my wife made a small purchase on Amazon. In the evening, I was checking our shared credit card statement and noticed that there were two charges from Amazon. One was for the amount of her purchase. The other was for $1.00 and said "Amazon Prime".

I went to my wife and asked her, "Did you mean to sign up for Amazon Prime?"

Her reply: "What is Amazon Prime?"

We then had to go into her Amazon account and manually cancel a service we didn't want that would have silently billed us $99 in 30 days.

Now, you could say, that perhaps my wife did not clearly read every word of every screen that was presented to her during the checkout process. But shouldn't it have been obvious? My wife literally had no idea she signed up for something that costs $99, by accident, all while making an $11 purchase.

I don't think it's possible to argue that this is an accident. Amazon clearly knows what they are doing, and it is by design.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#149

Post by ajb »

Crito wrote: post #90
dzhiurgis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't: * Can't get shipping charges before the last step (after selecting the credit card which implies I am about to pay) * Sneaking in Prime * Fucked up search

The first I agree with, but I'm not sure what you mean by "Sneaking in Prime". "Fucked up search" is almost certainly not deliberate. I suspect it costs them a good deal of sales when people cannot find what they wanted to purchase. I don't think you can call that an 'dark pattern' unless it is deliberate and they are working some sort of angle.

I don't know what GP meant, but maybe Amazon is aiming for a spot where it's easy to find something that fits the bill, but hard to find the cheapest thing that fits the bill. That's generally been my experience with their search, anyway.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#150

Post by SEMW »

icebraining wrote: post #119
seabee wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless case law is created in the small claims court, having specific regulations for things which normally end up there is very beneficial for consumers. It gives you a tool to fight the disease - the company committing fraud - rather than treating symptoms by settling in small claims court with anyone who cared enough to bring it there.

It gives you a tool to fight the disease - the company committing fraud In what way, exactly? And why couldn't that be done if the behavior was simply considered fraud, which is should obviously be?

For one thing, what is "considered fraud" will be different in each of the 27 member countries of the EU in any area of fraud where national law has not been superseded by a harmonisation directive like this one.

Part of the point of the EU is to have a single market for goods and services. That means I should be able to order something from a Danish company with the same confidence (in a basic level of consumer protection) that I would in my home country, knowing that any caselaw will have been at the CJEU level (because it's interpreting an EU directive) and so will apply EU-wide.

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