> About 30 sites made it easy to sign up for services but particularly hard to cancel, requiring phone calls or other procedures. The Times requires people to talk with a representative online or by phone to cancel subscriptions, but the researchers did not study it or other publishing sites.
Nice that the editor was at least allowed to point out that their own employer employs many of these "dark patterns".
Hi! I know this thread is a day old at this point, but I'm the reporter on this story and just wanted to say thanks for noticing that I put that in. I write a lot about privacy, online advertising and so forth, and I think it's important to readers that reporters at the NYT cover the same issues within our own business.
(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.)
In the US, businesses try to get you to sign contracts even when it makes zero sense. For example, why do I need to sign a contract for a gym? I pay X dollars for a month, and use it for that month. If I want to use it next month, then I pay X dollars again. Makes sense (this is how it is, at least in the countries I have been), right? Nope. I made the mistake of signing up for NYSC, imagine my surprise when I wanted to cancel (because I was moving away) and I got calls non stop for $250 "cancellation fee"? My fault for not reading the fine print, lesson learned.
Not just e-commerce sites—change.org shows "### have signed," where the number is programmed to tick upwards at a somewhat randomized rate. This is simply dishonest—a lie designed to make you feel like you'll be missing out unless you sign.
I've pondered this for a while, if this disingenuous design pattern is biasing people to sign their names, in addition to their shady user engagement email spam with click bait polarizing email subject lines and targeted spam "Sizzle, the discussion keeps evolving..."
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.
It's also pretty common in event promotion. Sell tickets in tiers, but make the capacity of the first two tiers ridiculously small, like 10 or 15 in total. They'll sell out relatively quickly, and it feels like the ticket price is going to jump, so if you do it right, most people will buy their tickets at a slightly inflated rate, and you make more money.
Then you promote online saying stuff like "ABOUT TO SELL OUT! ONLY 50 TICKETS LEFT!" the week before to drive more sales. :P
Couldn't that just be attributed to a log that is compacted to a count? I would imagine a system like change.org needs to handle plenty of people all of a sudden signing that a append-only log would be sufficient for.
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 report coincides with discussions among lawmakers about regulating technology companies, including through a bill proposed in April by Senators Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, that is meant to limit the use of dark patterns by making some of the techniques illegal and giving the Federal Trade Commission more authority to police the practice.
"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".
Too bad lawmakers must first experience the problem themselves, before they spring to action. I believe support for healthcare problems and modern-day solutions (such as s embryonic stem cell research) would benefit from showing more passion towards others.
We have a ton of laws on the books to regulate companies.
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.
Trying to ban things as they pop up is a long and arduous process. On the other hand, making more sweeping laws may have a lot of unwanted or unforseen side-effects.
Those seedy furniture stores that have "going out of business" sales that seem to last for years, are often running the same scam. Grocery also stores do this, with their shoppers cards discounts.
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
I don’t understand the issue with this sales tactic. There is complete price transparency, and it takes minimal mental capacity to understand that “discounts” are just to fulfill people’s desire to “get” something that others might not be able to. If they want that dopamine hit, then let them have it.
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.
Not all these notifications are fake but they can still be misleading.
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.
Why would the ThredUp example not fall under current regulations against false advertising? If I say "This dress was bought 4 minutes ago!" or "Hurry now! Only one left!", those statements are obviously either true or false.
The FTC regulates advertisements. [1] At what point is a statement like "[x] just saved $[y]!" on your own site being shown to a visitor constitute an advertisement for your service? Or is it just advertisements involving a paid third party?
From 1: "Advertisements with specific claims can be substantiated with evidence"
As much as I don’t like PayPal I will never sign up for any subscription that does not go through PayPal. Reason being, I can log into PayPal and stop my subscriptions any time without jumping through hoops.
I run an international e-commerce site in several countries. We have been recommended all these dark patterns. Sometimes I see sites that apply all of them at once and a new user gets no less than 3 pop-ups within 10 seconds engaging them in different ways.
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.
I recall in another FB thread that shaming employees was not totally frowned-upon if it planted the seed in the engineer that they should maybe reflect on what they're contributing to and consider alternative work.
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.
Thank you for this point (and book recommendation). It has clarified my thinking on dark patterns, something I've long suspected. We need to (re)educate designers about the mistakes they're making, in service of what I assume are data- hungry marketing employees.
I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."
Wow thredup has a dress discounted from $60 available for only $7.39 if I sign up now! I better hurry as there’s only 3 left and Sarah from New Jersey just got one!
There goes that nasty evil capitalism, "It wasn't my lack of will power and cognitive short falls that caused me to buy these things ... it was capitalism's fault. I'm completely innocent and would never make bad decisions of my own accord ..."
[+] [-] 2T1Qka0rEiPr|6 years ago|reply
Nice that the editor was at least allowed to point out that their own employer employs many of these "dark patterns".
[+] [-] jenvalentino|6 years ago|reply
(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.)
[+] [-] exergy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justaguyhere|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SippinLean|6 years ago|reply
* You don't have to "talk" with a CSR online, it's a chat window
* You can cancel with an email to [email protected]
* By disabling auto-renewal the subscription will automatically be canceled at the end of the subscription period
[+] [-] whycombagator|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readbeard|6 years ago|reply
Example: https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world-with-...
[+] [-] sizzle|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tomphoolery|6 years ago|reply
Then you promote online saying stuff like "ABOUT TO SELL OUT! ONLY 50 TICKETS LEFT!" the week before to drive more sales. :P
[+] [-] sieabahlpark|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] 3xblah|6 years ago|reply
"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".
[+] [-] digitalengineer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4ntonius8lock|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmurthy|6 years ago|reply
(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...
[+] [-] SmirkingRevenge|6 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] draugadrotten|6 years ago|reply
https://www.google.com/search?q=udemy+discount
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] throwaway13337|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] djflutt3rshy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabaalis|6 years ago|reply
From 1: "Advertisements with specific claims can be substantiated with evidence"
[1] https://bondstreet.com/truth-in-advertising-laws/
[+] [-] mrhappyunhappy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimhi|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wazoox|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eswat|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] DaveWalk|6 years ago|reply
I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jumpinalake|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgovostes|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albertgoeswoof|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmurthy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Proven|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|6 years ago|reply