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Talking from my personal experience in the travel industry (6 years senior engineer @ a travel startup). This is really common practice and I hated every bit o

Talking from my personal experience in the travel industry (6 years senior engineer @ a travel startup). This is really common practice and I hated every bit of it. Everyone is looking at the big guys like Expedia and Booking.com and those are really pushy. You can see them popping up every thing in a popup. You're looking at a room and you see "1500 people are looking @ this room now", everything, just to get you to book. This case is a bit extreme, even in those standards, but not the first time I see something like it.

brndnmtthws 9y ago
Can't we strive for better rather than just rinsing and repeating the same bad UX and shove-it-down-your-throat tactics?
- dsacco 9y ago
  Most users do not care and do not agree with you that it is bad, as evidenced by the continuing dominance of these practices. What you have here is a crusade based upon your personal feelings, not the objective utility of the website. And the result is that we now have a discussion going centered around common marketing strategies instead of the website itself and its service. As a counterpoint, I don't particularly find this website egregious. If you feel strongly about things like this, don't use those websites, or build your own alternative (though a lack of popups will not be a competitive advantage). Note that I'm not saying this to insult you. I'm saying this because your comment comes across to me as myopic and lacking in self-awareness. You're not the target demographic if these things put you off, but that doesn't mean it's productive for you to call them "bad." HN users frequently wonder how people build profitable advertising, product or consulting-driven profitable businesses, and the answer is (in part) that those people were okay with doing things that others find disagreeble. That's an inevitability when you have outspoken groups like e.g. those who believe all software should be free and open source.
  - tsunamifury 9y ago
    If it works it doesn't mean they like it. They can go with it and hate it.
    - dsacco 9y ago
      I totally agree! If that's the case, there is a wonderful market opportunity here. People shouldn't be made to grudgingly put up with options they don't like - that's entirely why we have competition. Maybe we'd find that the market is inefficient, which is why this website thrives despite its user interface (if we take as axiomatic that the user interface is really unenjoyable for most users). However, I'd happily bet that this is actually not the case, and that most users not only put up with it, they don't notice it. I'll note (as a purely dialectic matter) that I do not agree with the idea that people can simultaneously dislike something and not be willing to spend money to enjoy it more, given that there are more enjoyable alternatives of the same utility and the users can afford it.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Slimy, dirty tricks, tasteless popups and dark patterns work. Nobody denies that. Some of the most successful, profitable small-time web sites out there are successful by doing it in ways that would make me ashamed and disgusted with myself. I once did a little research into the lead-gen and affiliate linking businesses, and felt like I needed to take a shower when I was done. But they're successful at generating money, so who am I to criticize? Hell, SPAM still works, evidently!
    - dsacco 9y ago
      I'll reiterate: a lack of awfulness is not implied by high profitability. It's implied by a high number of users who don't mind.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        > I'll reiterate: a lack of awfulness is not implied by high profitability. It's implied by a high number of users who don't mind. If ever there were a statement that encapsulated AOL in a nutshell...
- softawre 9y ago
  Better by what metric? If you owned the business what would you optimize for? Warm and Fuzzies? Or possibly profit?
- kdavidson 9y ago
  Kyle here! Founder of SA. These are all good points. As Damian mentioned we test all of these tools and they all do significantly increase conversions on our site. It's something we've discussed internally quite a bit. I wish it were as simple as, hey we have this great product and that's all we need to have, but alas these tools are necessary to help us grow the business. Another important thing to consider -- You have to look at our site through the lens of the travel industry. Deciding you're going to book an all day excursion or 5-day vacation is a big commitment and people have a lot of questions. They tend to revisit the site again and again before converting because there is a lot to consider. That's why we have pre-triggered chats, which BTW only trigger if you meet certain parameters. For example, if you spend more than a certain amount of time on a product page, visit specific pages where we see a lot of drop-off, or on your 2nd or 3rd session. We don't bug people at random, we bug them in a very carefully and meticulously measured way :) If we were a SaaS business for example we would optimize differently. I might even go as far as to say some (maybe not all) of what appears to be annoying to an outsider can help assist the end user. All of that being said, I totally understand where everyone is coming from here and to be honest I don't think there is a single comment here that I disagree with. Ultimately, we have to test things and keep what works. If it doesn't work we always get rid of it, eventually.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  If you run your own business you know why that is never going to be the goal for a company neither should it imo.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  If you run your own business you know why that is never going to be the goal for a company neither should it imo.

brndnmtthws 9y ago

Can't we strive for better rather than just rinsing and repeating the same bad UX and shove-it-down-your-throat tactics?

dsacco 9y ago
Most users do not care and do not agree with you that it is bad, as evidenced by the continuing dominance of these practices. What you have here is a crusade based upon your personal feelings, not the objective utility of the website. And the result is that we now have a discussion going centered around common marketing strategies instead of the website itself and its service. As a counterpoint, I don't particularly find this website egregious. If you feel strongly about things like this, don't use those websites, or build your own alternative (though a lack of popups will not be a competitive advantage). Note that I'm not saying this to insult you. I'm saying this because your comment comes across to me as myopic and lacking in self-awareness. You're not the target demographic if these things put you off, but that doesn't mean it's productive for you to call them "bad." HN users frequently wonder how people build profitable advertising, product or consulting-driven profitable businesses, and the answer is (in part) that those people were okay with doing things that others find disagreeble. That's an inevitability when you have outspoken groups like e.g. those who believe all software should be free and open source.
- tsunamifury 9y ago
  If it works it doesn't mean they like it. They can go with it and hate it.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    I totally agree! If that's the case, there is a wonderful market opportunity here. People shouldn't be made to grudgingly put up with options they don't like - that's entirely why we have competition. Maybe we'd find that the market is inefficient, which is why this website thrives despite its user interface (if we take as axiomatic that the user interface is really unenjoyable for most users). However, I'd happily bet that this is actually not the case, and that most users not only put up with it, they don't notice it. I'll note (as a purely dialectic matter) that I do not agree with the idea that people can simultaneously dislike something and not be willing to spend money to enjoy it more, given that there are more enjoyable alternatives of the same utility and the users can afford it.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Slimy, dirty tricks, tasteless popups and dark patterns work. Nobody denies that. Some of the most successful, profitable small-time web sites out there are successful by doing it in ways that would make me ashamed and disgusted with myself. I once did a little research into the lead-gen and affiliate linking businesses, and felt like I needed to take a shower when I was done. But they're successful at generating money, so who am I to criticize? Hell, SPAM still works, evidently!
  - dsacco 9y ago
    I'll reiterate: a lack of awfulness is not implied by high profitability. It's implied by a high number of users who don't mind.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      > I'll reiterate: a lack of awfulness is not implied by high profitability. It's implied by a high number of users who don't mind. If ever there were a statement that encapsulated AOL in a nutshell...
softawre 9y ago
Better by what metric? If you owned the business what would you optimize for? Warm and Fuzzies? Or possibly profit?
kdavidson 9y ago
Kyle here! Founder of SA. These are all good points. As Damian mentioned we test all of these tools and they all do significantly increase conversions on our site. It's something we've discussed internally quite a bit. I wish it were as simple as, hey we have this great product and that's all we need to have, but alas these tools are necessary to help us grow the business. Another important thing to consider -- You have to look at our site through the lens of the travel industry. Deciding you're going to book an all day excursion or 5-day vacation is a big commitment and people have a lot of questions. They tend to revisit the site again and again before converting because there is a lot to consider. That's why we have pre-triggered chats, which BTW only trigger if you meet certain parameters. For example, if you spend more than a certain amount of time on a product page, visit specific pages where we see a lot of drop-off, or on your 2nd or 3rd session. We don't bug people at random, we bug them in a very carefully and meticulously measured way :) If we were a SaaS business for example we would optimize differently. I might even go as far as to say some (maybe not all) of what appears to be annoying to an outsider can help assist the end user. All of that being said, I totally understand where everyone is coming from here and to be honest I don't think there is a single comment here that I disagree with. Ultimately, we have to test things and keep what works. If it doesn't work we always get rid of it, eventually.
ThomPete 9y ago
If you run your own business you know why that is never going to be the goal for a company neither should it imo.
ThomPete 9y ago
If you run your own business you know why that is never going to be the goal for a company neither should it imo.