9 ms·

When Websites Won’t Take No for an Answer

94 points by hvo 10y ago

dustinupdyke 10y ago
Click --> NYT Article --> Back --> Open in new incognito window A dark pattern if I ever saw one.
- BrandonBradley 10y ago
  My NYT savior! Thanks
x5n1 10y ago
They don't care cost of doing business. Internet is an advertising and marketing platform with all the downsides of that. Part of the function of an advertising marketing platform is to gather as much information about users to sell them stuff. That's what pays for billion dollar valuations. This is not going away.
- 55555 10y ago
  A lot of it could go away with better consumer protection laws and enforcement. I'm not sure why this country puts up with deceptive negative-option rebills. They should just show the sales funnel to 100 random citizens, and ask them how much they think they are going to be charged after going through it. If more than 50 people get the answer wrong, what you are doing is obviously deceptive (Yes this would include things like mortgages and credit card fees).
  - uxp 10y ago
    Because one person or company that is bound to lose millions of dollars, or their entire business model (deceptive advertising and marketing, for one) has more of an incentive to lobby against a regulation than a million unorganized people that might lose 25 or 30 dollars over signing up for a difficult to cancel "membership".
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
"``That’s when things start to drift into manipulation,” said Katie Swindler, director of user experience at FCB Chicago, an ad agency." Really, her last name is Swindler? That's just funny.
xg15 10y ago
To help companies gauge where their techniques fall along the persuasive-to-manipulative spectrum, Chris Nodder, a user-experience consultant in Seattle, has developed guidelines for ethical conduct. Systems that nudge people to act in the public interest are “charitable,” he told me, while products like Fitbit, which may help people develop better habits, are “motivational. “If the company benefits more than the consumer, I would call it ‘evil design,’” said Mr. Nodder, who wrote a book on the topic called “Evil by Design.” If an approach benefits the company and the customer equally, he added, “you are probably in the realm of ‘commercial design.’” I find it surprising that the researcher apparently makes the distinction whether a certain UI is "dark" or not depending on what it is used for. As a customer, unless I signed up with the explicit goal of habit-change (e.g. for a fitness service) I would very much not like to be manipulated no matter if the cause is "good" or not.
- golemotron 10y ago
  > “If the company benefits more than the consumer, I would call it ‘evil design,’” said Mr. Nodder, who wrote a book on the topic called “Evil by Design.” That is stunningly poor reasoning. It doesn't matter whether a company benefits more than you do as long as you are not harmed. Not all games are zero-sum. Thinking you should be getting more or equal to the other party is not harm, it's envy.
  - exodust 10y ago
    I would say it does matter if a company benefits more than I do, but makes out like it doesn't. Any fair transaction should surely balance? In the end, nobody likes being deceived or presented with false information, even happy customers.
    - 13of40 10y ago
      > Any fair transaction should surely balance? I don't think that's true, because a company could have the means to do something profitably that an individual couldn't. For example, I just changed the toner cartridges on my printer, and HP provided UPS stickers so I can send the old ones back for "recycling", which is obviously just them filling them back up and selling them to someone else. Let's assume they just made $20 on the deal. That doesn't mean I'd have $20 if I'd kept them, because to me, lacking a factory to refurbish them, they're just garbage. Same goes for all of that personal information Google and Facebook make money on -- you can't go down to the pawn shop and sell your own information, because it only matters in bulk.
exodust 10y ago
LinkedIn suffered a class-action lawsuit for their email spam! I didn't know that, good to hear. I left years ago and remember it difficult to leave (lack of close account function, and kept receiving emails after unsubscribing). On the LinkedIn issues, this tweet surely is the funniest: https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 On dark patterns, or at least it felt dark... I was booking an overnight ferry trip across Bass Strait in Australia. After selecting the fare, entering my details about my car make and model, name and address, cabin choice etc, and about to enter credit card details, the website proclaims "our real-time fare system has adjusted the price" and my fare went up $40 right there and then on the final step of the booking process. Not happy.
- hellbanner 10y ago
  I wonder if that was because they thought you had a nice car. RyanAir in Europe is notorious for this. Cheap flights but expensive, unadvertised baggage fees.
  - exodust 10y ago
    My car is nothing special. They would claim that prices change due to other people booking while you're going through the process, but I don't believe that. I was booking well in advance - more than a month, and I was using the site after midnight. There should be regulation against changing a price that is advertised, at least lock it in for a minimum of 5 or 10 minutes of selecting the fare. Bumping the fare up at the last step only a couple of minutes later is highly suspicious.
- oliv__ 10y ago
  Hahaha that's sadly hilarious.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I hate this, because it's made me cynical. I don't even try to un-subscribe from emails like this anymore, I just mark them as spam. And that hurts the good companies that do listen and unsubscribe you easily, because now they are being looked at as spammy.
CPLX 10y ago
I consider myself pretty cynical by nature, and I still found this Ryanair example rather astonishing: https://twitter.com/Jelliott08/status/430777503360491520?lang=en https://twitter.com/Jelliott08/status/430777503360491520?lan...
- JadeNB 10y ago
  It's mentioned in the article: > Whereas Ryanair once placed the insurance opt-out option in a drop-down menu of passengers’ home countries — between Denmark and Finland — it now simply gives passengers the option of adding insurance.
kerkeslager 10y ago
Facebook is pretty guilty of this too. I "deleted my account" on Facebook years ago and the only effect this had was that I lost access make changes to my account. The account still exists and still is accessible[1], albeit with outdated information. I have no doubt they're still making money off my data. [1] https://www.facebook.com/david.kerkeslager https://www.facebook.com/david.kerkeslager
- eevilspock 10y ago
  The EFF wrote a nice stinging indictment of Facebook, Internet Companies: Confusing Consumers for Profit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-con...
- dave2000 10y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if Facebook created profiles for people who've never used it, just by virtue of having enough of their friends having their contact details. IE if 5 people are friends and all have "fred bloggs" in their contact list then there's a good chance it's the same "fred bloggs". I'm not sure what this virtual person is worth to advertisers, though, just like I'm not sure what you're worth if you don't use it any more.
  - mason55 10y ago
    They absolutely do this and have been doing it for awhile. If you google "Facebook shadow profiles" you'll get plenty of info about it.
- spicyj 10y ago
  That doesn't sound right. Have you tried logging into it again? If you can, you should be able to follow these instructions then which really do permanently delete the account: https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674 https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674 (If you can't get in, reset password, etc?)
eevilspock 10y ago
The key last line from this EFF indictment of Facebook[1]: "If a business model wouldn’t work if users had to opt in, it deserves to fail." To me the entire ad-supported "business model" is the darkest pattern of them all. Please read this comment before a knee-jerk rejection of my claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 - [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-con...
- andybak 10y ago
  So far the negative effect on my life of the sum total of tracking and ad-profiling has been - to the best of my knowledge - neglible. (Largely because the ability of companies to use data to my detriment hasn't kept pace with the thirst for collecting it). In return I've been given free access to a huge amount of free content and free functionality. Plus - very occasionally - the advertising is beneficial rather than merely irrelevant.
  - eevilspock 10y ago
    If you read my link then you'd realize that society is subsidizing all your free shit. There is no free lunch.
ikeboy 10y ago
Two rants: Signed up for pickydomains a while back, they send me emails every time there's a new listing. I decide I don't want to get the email anymore. Click the unsubscribe link. They want me to sign in. I sign in, and am unable to do anything without agreeing to their changed Terms of Service. In other words, I have no way to get them to stop emailing me without agreeing to new terms. Similarly, I once signed up for a trial of IBD newspaper. I still get emails from them occasionally (although those at least go to spam), and the unsubscribe link requires a sign in, which I don't remember. I could probably reset my password if I cared enough, though. (These are just the two I remember, I'm sure there's been others that were similar. I had an issue with PayPal spam at one point as well but it was more complicated.) As far as I can tell, both of those are in violation of the CANSPAM act. Companies are required to offer an opt out link with no additional requirements to opt out. But there's no consumer right of action, so the only one who can enforce it is the government, and they focus on worse spammers, so real businesses that are just aggressive mostly get off free.
- arjie 10y ago
  If a single click doesn't unsubscribe, I click Report Spam. Gmail takes care of it from there on.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    But if it's an otherwise legitimate company, not enough people will do that and so Gmail won't end up flagging it. (I don't think spam flags are personalized, so even to me future emails wouldn't go to spam. I could set up a filter, though.)
    - pluma 10y ago
      Depending on where you and the company are, you can actually sue them. EDIT: To clarify: in Germany you can sue companies for spam and making the opt-out unnecessarily difficult. Of course the damages are so trivial you'll likely overpay but there are enough bored lawyers that these things tend to happen every now and then.
hannob 10y ago
This is actually a widespread practice among German ISPs. I once fell for this myself. What they do is that when you order something they automatically add some service most customers almost certainly don't want or need (like a software package or homepage webspace) and that is free for the first months. You cannot remove that from your order, you have to later cancel it manually. As it's free at the beginning new customers checking their bill won't notice it as something odd (it's some free addon, why care?). Then after some time it starts costing a fee.
- robert_tweed 10y ago
  That sort of thing is now illegal in the UK and most likely in Germany too. The trouble is that there are no penalties beyond individual refunds and not enough people are aware of their rights for it to have a significant impact. See: http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2014/08/26/some-dark-patterns-now-illegal-in-uk-interview-with-heather-burns/ http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2014/08/26/some-dark-pa... Note that this article is from two years ago and at least one of the sites called out is still doing the same thing.
- pluma 10y ago
  Not sure who you are referring to (wouldn't be surprised if you are thinking of Telekom though) but at least 1&1 and NetCologne only try to upsell you throughout the entire process but don't automatically add this kind of stuff.
lfender6445 10y ago
godaddy is notorious for this when you are purchasing or renewing a domain
Animats 10y ago
Amazon Prime. If you use Amazon but don't want Amazon Prime, you get deceptive dialogs shoved in your face at least twice per purchase.
- pluma 10y ago
  Did you know you can save $20 on this purchase by applying for an Amazon credit card? If you try Amazon Prime for FREE, you also don't have to pay for shipping.
  - gohrt 10y ago
    Don't worry, we'll default to Prime when you check out, as long as you don't hunt for the obscure opt-out link.
dredmorbius 10y ago
The ultimate problem with such dark patterns is that they darken the prospects for all participants. I'veb been long aware of such trends. Something as simple as a multi-step transaction process, across multiple screens. I literally cannot see what the end-stage requests will be before committing. If I don't bug out immediately, I'll just throw random inputs at the page to see what the hell it does. But it's another reason why I'll strongly prefer in-store, brick-and-morter purchases, or anything that doesn't have a service contract (the "agree to our new ToS to cancel your account" story below really puts the shine and hurt on this), etc. Much as the whole microlawsuits thing sounds like an absolute PITA, something which reduces frictions for consumers to sue would be interesting. Respond to failed opt-out tools with a claim for damages and costs.... Sigh.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > Something as simple as a multi-step transaction process Amazon UK has an horrid check-out process that omits any clickable bail-out links, should you want to back-up to change something you have to edit the URL bar. They also only provide a total for all postage, on one page, with no break-out of what applies to which item ( from multiple vendors ). I assume it's meant to be slick and non-distracting but it feels like a greased laundry chute through which you are sliding...
  - gohrt 10y ago
    > I assume it's meant to be slick and non-distracting well, yes, non-distracting from completing checkout using the most-expensive options.
  - grogenaut 10y ago
    They rolled out a go back to browsing mode in the us a few months ago on checkout. I think they looked at the data about how often people want to add one more item especially with the hated "Add on item" and prime. Also how often carts were being abandoned anyway to add more items.
iampims 10y ago
Meetup.com forces you to log in to unsubscribe. Their emails go straight to junk.
- Endy 10y ago
  I'd call Meetup a different case; as someone who actively uses the service, both as Organizer & Member... I need to know if someone knew signed up to my Meetup so I can send the a message and engage them. Or if a new group started up competing with me (or groups I'm a member of). My own RSVP notifications are obvious. Sorry, but the email Meetup sends is literally integral to the function of the service.
ninguem2 10y ago
So I clicked on the link and, for the umpteenth time, was greeted by their pop-up saying "we can't go on like this" and asking me to whitelist them on my adblocker. I am a subscriber of their online edition. Oh, the irony.

94 points by hvo 10y ago

dustinupdyke 10y ago

Click --> NYT Article --> Back --> Open in new incognito window A dark pattern if I ever saw one.

BrandonBradley 10y ago
My NYT savior! Thanks

x5n1 10y ago

They don't care cost of doing business. Internet is an advertising and marketing platform with all the downsides of that. Part of the function of an advertising marketing platform is to gather as much information about users to sell them stuff. That's what pays for billion dollar valuations. This is not going away.

55555 10y ago
A lot of it could go away with better consumer protection laws and enforcement. I'm not sure why this country puts up with deceptive negative-option rebills. They should just show the sales funnel to 100 random citizens, and ask them how much they think they are going to be charged after going through it. If more than 50 people get the answer wrong, what you are doing is obviously deceptive (Yes this would include things like mortgages and credit card fees).
- uxp 10y ago
  Because one person or company that is bound to lose millions of dollars, or their entire business model (deceptive advertising and marketing, for one) has more of an incentive to lobby against a regulation than a million unorganized people that might lose 25 or 30 dollars over signing up for a difficult to cancel "membership".

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

"``That’s when things start to drift into manipulation,” said Katie Swindler, director of user experience at FCB Chicago, an ad agency." Really, her last name is Swindler? That's just funny.

xg15 10y ago

To help companies gauge where their techniques fall along the persuasive-to-manipulative spectrum, Chris Nodder, a user-experience consultant in Seattle, has developed guidelines for ethical conduct. Systems that nudge people to act in the public interest are “charitable,” he told me, while products like Fitbit, which may help people develop better habits, are “motivational. “If the company benefits more than the consumer, I would call it ‘evil design,’” said Mr. Nodder, who wrote a book on the topic called “Evil by Design.” If an approach benefits the company and the customer equally, he added, “you are probably in the realm of ‘commercial design.’” I find it surprising that the researcher apparently makes the distinction whether a certain UI is "dark" or not depending on what it is used for. As a customer, unless I signed up with the explicit goal of habit-change (e.g. for a fitness service) I would very much not like to be manipulated no matter if the cause is "good" or not.

golemotron 10y ago
> “If the company benefits more than the consumer, I would call it ‘evil design,’” said Mr. Nodder, who wrote a book on the topic called “Evil by Design.” That is stunningly poor reasoning. It doesn't matter whether a company benefits more than you do as long as you are not harmed. Not all games are zero-sum. Thinking you should be getting more or equal to the other party is not harm, it's envy.
- exodust 10y ago
  I would say it does matter if a company benefits more than I do, but makes out like it doesn't. Any fair transaction should surely balance? In the end, nobody likes being deceived or presented with false information, even happy customers.
  - 13of40 10y ago
    > Any fair transaction should surely balance? I don't think that's true, because a company could have the means to do something profitably that an individual couldn't. For example, I just changed the toner cartridges on my printer, and HP provided UPS stickers so I can send the old ones back for "recycling", which is obviously just them filling them back up and selling them to someone else. Let's assume they just made $20 on the deal. That doesn't mean I'd have $20 if I'd kept them, because to me, lacking a factory to refurbish them, they're just garbage. Same goes for all of that personal information Google and Facebook make money on -- you can't go down to the pawn shop and sell your own information, because it only matters in bulk.

exodust 10y ago

LinkedIn suffered a class-action lawsuit for their email spam! I didn't know that, good to hear. I left years ago and remember it difficult to leave (lack of close account function, and kept receiving emails after unsubscribing). On the LinkedIn issues, this tweet surely is the funniest: https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 On dark patterns, or at least it felt dark... I was booking an overnight ferry trip across Bass Strait in Australia. After selecting the fare, entering my details about my car make and model, name and address, cabin choice etc, and about to enter credit card details, the website proclaims "our real-time fare system has adjusted the price" and my fare went up $40 right there and then on the final step of the booking process. Not happy.

hellbanner 10y ago
I wonder if that was because they thought you had a nice car. RyanAir in Europe is notorious for this. Cheap flights but expensive, unadvertised baggage fees.
- exodust 10y ago
  My car is nothing special. They would claim that prices change due to other people booking while you're going through the process, but I don't believe that. I was booking well in advance - more than a month, and I was using the site after midnight. There should be regulation against changing a price that is advertised, at least lock it in for a minimum of 5 or 10 minutes of selecting the fare. Bumping the fare up at the last step only a couple of minutes later is highly suspicious.
oliv__ 10y ago
Hahaha that's sadly hilarious.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I hate this, because it's made me cynical. I don't even try to un-subscribe from emails like this anymore, I just mark them as spam. And that hurts the good companies that do listen and unsubscribe you easily, because now they are being looked at as spammy.

CPLX 10y ago

I consider myself pretty cynical by nature, and I still found this Ryanair example rather astonishing: https://twitter.com/Jelliott08/status/430777503360491520?lang=en https://twitter.com/Jelliott08/status/430777503360491520?lan...

JadeNB 10y ago
It's mentioned in the article: > Whereas Ryanair once placed the insurance opt-out option in a drop-down menu of passengers’ home countries — between Denmark and Finland — it now simply gives passengers the option of adding insurance.

kerkeslager 10y ago

Facebook is pretty guilty of this too. I "deleted my account" on Facebook years ago and the only effect this had was that I lost access make changes to my account. The account still exists and still is accessible[1], albeit with outdated information. I have no doubt they're still making money off my data. [1] https://www.facebook.com/david.kerkeslager https://www.facebook.com/david.kerkeslager

eevilspock 10y ago
The EFF wrote a nice stinging indictment of Facebook, Internet Companies: Confusing Consumers for Profit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-con...
dave2000 10y ago
It wouldn't surprise me if Facebook created profiles for people who've never used it, just by virtue of having enough of their friends having their contact details. IE if 5 people are friends and all have "fred bloggs" in their contact list then there's a good chance it's the same "fred bloggs". I'm not sure what this virtual person is worth to advertisers, though, just like I'm not sure what you're worth if you don't use it any more.
- mason55 10y ago
  They absolutely do this and have been doing it for awhile. If you google "Facebook shadow profiles" you'll get plenty of info about it.
spicyj 10y ago
That doesn't sound right. Have you tried logging into it again? If you can, you should be able to follow these instructions then which really do permanently delete the account: https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674 https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674 (If you can't get in, reset password, etc?)

eevilspock 10y ago

The key last line from this EFF indictment of Facebook[1]: "If a business model wouldn’t work if users had to opt in, it deserves to fail." To me the entire ad-supported "business model" is the darkest pattern of them all. Please read this comment before a knee-jerk rejection of my claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 - [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-con...

andybak 10y ago
So far the negative effect on my life of the sum total of tracking and ad-profiling has been - to the best of my knowledge - neglible. (Largely because the ability of companies to use data to my detriment hasn't kept pace with the thirst for collecting it). In return I've been given free access to a huge amount of free content and free functionality. Plus - very occasionally - the advertising is beneficial rather than merely irrelevant.
- eevilspock 10y ago
  If you read my link then you'd realize that society is subsidizing all your free shit. There is no free lunch.

ikeboy 10y ago

Two rants: Signed up for pickydomains a while back, they send me emails every time there's a new listing. I decide I don't want to get the email anymore. Click the unsubscribe link. They want me to sign in. I sign in, and am unable to do anything without agreeing to their changed Terms of Service. In other words, I have no way to get them to stop emailing me without agreeing to new terms. Similarly, I once signed up for a trial of IBD newspaper. I still get emails from them occasionally (although those at least go to spam), and the unsubscribe link requires a sign in, which I don't remember. I could probably reset my password if I cared enough, though. (These are just the two I remember, I'm sure there's been others that were similar. I had an issue with PayPal spam at one point as well but it was more complicated.) As far as I can tell, both of those are in violation of the CANSPAM act. Companies are required to offer an opt out link with no additional requirements to opt out. But there's no consumer right of action, so the only one who can enforce it is the government, and they focus on worse spammers, so real businesses that are just aggressive mostly get off free.

arjie 10y ago
If a single click doesn't unsubscribe, I click Report Spam. Gmail takes care of it from there on.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  But if it's an otherwise legitimate company, not enough people will do that and so Gmail won't end up flagging it. (I don't think spam flags are personalized, so even to me future emails wouldn't go to spam. I could set up a filter, though.)
  - pluma 10y ago
    Depending on where you and the company are, you can actually sue them. EDIT: To clarify: in Germany you can sue companies for spam and making the opt-out unnecessarily difficult. Of course the damages are so trivial you'll likely overpay but there are enough bored lawyers that these things tend to happen every now and then.

hannob 10y ago

This is actually a widespread practice among German ISPs. I once fell for this myself. What they do is that when you order something they automatically add some service most customers almost certainly don't want or need (like a software package or homepage webspace) and that is free for the first months. You cannot remove that from your order, you have to later cancel it manually. As it's free at the beginning new customers checking their bill won't notice it as something odd (it's some free addon, why care?). Then after some time it starts costing a fee.

robert_tweed 10y ago
That sort of thing is now illegal in the UK and most likely in Germany too. The trouble is that there are no penalties beyond individual refunds and not enough people are aware of their rights for it to have a significant impact. See: http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2014/08/26/some-dark-patterns-now-illegal-in-uk-interview-with-heather-burns/ http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2014/08/26/some-dark-pa... Note that this article is from two years ago and at least one of the sites called out is still doing the same thing.
pluma 10y ago
Not sure who you are referring to (wouldn't be surprised if you are thinking of Telekom though) but at least 1&1 and NetCologne only try to upsell you throughout the entire process but don't automatically add this kind of stuff.

lfender6445 10y ago

godaddy is notorious for this when you are purchasing or renewing a domain

Animats 10y ago

Amazon Prime. If you use Amazon but don't want Amazon Prime, you get deceptive dialogs shoved in your face at least twice per purchase.

pluma 10y ago
Did you know you can save $20 on this purchase by applying for an Amazon credit card? If you try Amazon Prime for FREE, you also don't have to pay for shipping.
- gohrt 10y ago
  Don't worry, we'll default to Prime when you check out, as long as you don't hunt for the obscure opt-out link.

dredmorbius 10y ago

The ultimate problem with such dark patterns is that they darken the prospects for all participants. I'veb been long aware of such trends. Something as simple as a multi-step transaction process, across multiple screens. I literally cannot see what the end-stage requests will be before committing. If I don't bug out immediately, I'll just throw random inputs at the page to see what the hell it does. But it's another reason why I'll strongly prefer in-store, brick-and-morter purchases, or anything that doesn't have a service contract (the "agree to our new ToS to cancel your account" story below really puts the shine and hurt on this), etc. Much as the whole microlawsuits thing sounds like an absolute PITA, something which reduces frictions for consumers to sue would be interesting. Respond to failed opt-out tools with a claim for damages and costs.... Sigh.

dingaling 10y ago
> Something as simple as a multi-step transaction process Amazon UK has an horrid check-out process that omits any clickable bail-out links, should you want to back-up to change something you have to edit the URL bar. They also only provide a total for all postage, on one page, with no break-out of what applies to which item ( from multiple vendors ). I assume it's meant to be slick and non-distracting but it feels like a greased laundry chute through which you are sliding...
- gohrt 10y ago
  > I assume it's meant to be slick and non-distracting well, yes, non-distracting from completing checkout using the most-expensive options.
- grogenaut 10y ago
  They rolled out a go back to browsing mode in the us a few months ago on checkout. I think they looked at the data about how often people want to add one more item especially with the hated "Add on item" and prime. Also how often carts were being abandoned anyway to add more items.

iampims 10y ago

Meetup.com forces you to log in to unsubscribe. Their emails go straight to junk.

Endy 10y ago
I'd call Meetup a different case; as someone who actively uses the service, both as Organizer & Member... I need to know if someone knew signed up to my Meetup so I can send the a message and engage them. Or if a new group started up competing with me (or groups I'm a member of). My own RSVP notifications are obvious. Sorry, but the email Meetup sends is literally integral to the function of the service.

ninguem2 10y ago

So I clicked on the link and, for the umpteenth time, was greeted by their pop-up saying "we can't go on like this" and asking me to whitelist them on my adblocker. I am a subscriber of their online edition. Oh, the irony.