Nice that the editor was at least allowed to point out that their own employer employs many of these "dark patterns".
(Also, I acknowledge that perhaps you were being facetious and I just can't tell. But I still want to take this opportunity to point out the general principle.)
I also track who is selling my name to marketers by using initials. So my subscriber name instead of Bob Jones is Ned Y. Jones for the NYT sub, Will S. Jones for the WSJ sub, and Roger D. Jones for the Readers Digest. Then when I get mailed an ad for sex toys advertised to Ned Jones, I know the NYT sold my name to them.
* You don't have to "talk" with a CSR online, it's a chat window
* You can cancel with an email to unsubscribe@nytimes.com
* By disabling auto-renewal the subscription will automatically be canceled at the end of the subscription period
You're just splitting hairs - you still have to have a conversation with someone, and the rep in the chat box makes it just as difficult as if you'd called in. When I canceled, the rep kept asking me if I was sure, reminded me multiple times what I would be missing out on if I went through with it, etc.. It took more than 5 minutes to get them to pull the trigger on canceling my account.
>You can cancel with an email to unsubscribe@nytimes.com
But I, and many other users, just want to click on "My Account" and then click a button that says "Cancel Account".
>By disabling auto-renewal the subscription will automatically be canceled at the end of the subscription period
NYT doesn't tell you that that's a method you can use to cancel your account, and not everyone is likely to think of it.
What do you consider talking online, if not chat?
The pattern has gotten more familiar since then. It also seems like they've improved things.
(Harvard research paper - WIP) https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/18-113_16977...
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-ret...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/09/24/what...
Consumers are the other half of the problem though. At least some of the scummy tactics are psycological hacks to get around real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business. The rest are dark patterns meant to manipulate and coerce that work strictly for the business, consumers be damned. I'm not sure where the line is.
Side note: Even to this day, I still catch myself sometimes thinking/saying the cost of something is $X rather than $X+1, when the listing price of something is $X.99, and I curse myself for the foolishness :P
We lived in a military community and I literally couldn’t count the number of times a customer would walk in and ask for a military discount. We were trained to politely explain our pricing and encourage shoppers to price-check our offerings against any place else. And often customers would demand to give us a discount because they served in $MILITARY_CONFLICT.
No matter how much we tried pointing out that our shoes were effectively on sale in perpetuity, they simply wouldn’t believe us. The psychology of the sale is real.
Do you have examples of such behaviors?
If something is worth X at time Y at place Z to the buyer, then it doesn’t matter what the discount is or isn’t.
If only the final price mattered, shops wouldn't be advertising such discounts.
"We are focused in on a problem that I think everyone recognizes," said Ms. Fischer, adding that she became interested in the problem after becoming annoyed in her personal experience with the techniques."
If we used programmer vernacular we might say she was "scratching her own itch".
First hand experience trumps everything.
Opposition to embryonic stem-cell research is principally rooted in compassion towards others — specifically, the human embryos which are killed in such research.
The thing is, we are in regulatory capture. The only time they get enforced is when the government wants a share of the profits (with fines that are < profits made) or when fledgling new businesses erode entrenched players (pokerstars and Sheldon Adelson)
At this point, I care about enforcement mechanisms... not more paper. We need to see CEOs behind bars if we want things to change.
If this were loot boxes, then maybe we'd be having a different discussion, but unless they're tricking you into something other than what is advertised, then the onus ultimately falls upon you to control your desire to purchase something.
And ask yourself-- who benefits the most from the borrow checker? Because it's sure not John Q. Programmer ...
Blaming consumers for their lack of self control is pure hypocrisy. Where do you think sellers got their desire to get so much money ? From their own lack of self control.
A rational mind does not need or desire millions of dollars. It needs what it requires to live a happy life : food, health, social interactions (quality & quantity). Anything else is pure irrational, pulsion driven excessive desires.
Example: https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world-with-...
How they promote petitions after you sign one by showing you 'trending' high shock value petitions is pretty scummy way to grab your attention and stay on the site signing more petitions. There has to be a better way to drive engagement than shoving polarizing clickbait petitions in my face.
Don't believe me? Sign up for the site and sign a petition, enjoy the flood of petition spam in your inbox.
Then you promote online saying stuff like "ABOUT TO SELL OUT! ONLY 50 TICKETS LEFT!" the week before to drive more sales. :P
As for the randomness I'd leave that up to the randomness of people signing up.
Of course I could be entirely wrong but I can see if a technical reason why it wouldn't go up cleanly, similar to YouTube views, they're not realtime.
The next question would be "why is the browser advertising that it's in incognito mode?", but that's not a question for the NYT.
Would shaming designers that are complicit in these dark patterns be a similar, favourable way of movement towards a better direction?
I actually finished a book that tries to do that[1]. But I don't believe enough designers are told from their peers that maybe the way they’re exercising their knowledge of design theory and psychology is being shitty towards people.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44432844-ruined-by-desig...
I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."
I've investigated a few of these sorts of apps on Shopify. They do use actual customer names but how long ago those orders came in seems a little dubious.
I believe it's not so much to promote fear of missing out - other apps do that better - e.g. ones that copy booking.com's pattern of 'only x left!'.
Instead, they're a very good way to signal to potential buyers that the (usually small) shop is being used by other shoppers to increase trust.
Few people go in to empty restaurants.
It would be interesting to know if there are legal implications to lying about your visitors using services like these, though.
From 1: "Advertisements with specific claims can be substantiated with evidence"
Many of these don't work long-term. These sites won't last long when they get one-time users who are deal seekers. This reminds me of back when all video sites had 10 ads and pop-ups or blogging sites. They all learned eventually.
I predict two dark patterns will stay with us. Making it hard to unsubscribe and designing the "YES" button to be more attractive to click than the "NO" button. They don't involve lying and they work surprisingly well.
