Unfortunately, the author doesn't really address how dark patterns apply to design. It seems to be more about his discovering that dark patterns is a thing, and

Unfortunately, the author doesn't really address how dark patterns apply to design. It seems to be more about his discovering that dark patterns is a thing, and that other designers should be aware of it. When I worked at Zynga, I was very confused by their farming mechanics. Good UX meant users shouldn't need to wait hours to proceed with their game. But that annoying wait period created an itch that drove micro-transactions. Was that a dark pattern? No. There was a decent understanding between user and service how it worked. The distinction of dark pattern is when that understanding is broken by tricking the user into an unexpected obligation.