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I liked it up until the "subscribe for more" plug at the end. I .. ended up with way more than would fit in this one blog post .. Enter your email

I liked it up until the "subscribe for more" plug at the end. I .. ended up with way more than would fit in this one blog post .. Enter your email and I’ll send you them (and if you want, you can get bonus material each time I post). Why so stingy about it, author? Force me to subscribe for more funny AI pics? Rather than simply posting the content in a followup article. Right. Then you wouldn't be able to collect all those e-mail addresses and subscribers. Probably doesn't qualify as a full-on dark pattern, but I am annoyed enough to say that I dislike this approach. Is this Web 2.0, 3.0, or higher? I'd like to go back to the 1.0.. anyone got a D/L link so I can reinstall the good version?

yeukhon 8y ago
Some people are shady af. Author should come here and explain.
- chucksmash 8y ago
  This isn't a dark pattern, it isn't shady af, and the author should not be called to the rug to answer for it. It's just someone trying to build an email distribution list for their (side?) gig. Feel free to enjoy the content without opting in.
  - yeukhon 8y ago
    Oh please. It’s a clickbait at best from my angry engineer tone. It’s shady because the person lure people in to read it and then at the end just day “btw, if you want to see them? Send me your email!” How is that not shady marketing? This is bad press. Bad article. This is killing reader morale. We should not encourage people like this to build their gigs. I felt I wasted my time reading this in the first place.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ehnto 8y ago
      Did you see the pictures? I noticed they didn't show on mobile. The article had a number of them. I imagine they probably generated dozens of them.
      - spongeb00b 8y ago
        Had to browse in landscape - the images went off the right side of the screen but the page won’t allow you to zoom out or scroll horizontally.
    - monadgonad 8y ago
      > How is that not shady marketing? Because you’ve already seen the good content! This blog highlights the most amusing/weird examples of stuff generated by AI. This particular post has 17 - I counted - examples. They’re not presented as a listicle or one-by-one slides, there’s not an advert between each one. This is exactly the sort of content we should be encouraging.
      - yeukhon 8y ago
        No. I disagree. Just because it has 17 examples doesn’t mean it’s not a markrting strategy.
        monadgonad 8y ago
        I didn't say it's not a marketing strategy, but it's really not shady. Again, you've already seen the best content. The rest is an optional, barely-mentioned extra.
andrewflnr 8y ago
Perhaps I'm naive, but I read it as, "I don't want to spam this blog post with a bunch of pictures that aren't the absolute cream of the crop, but if you're really into it, here's how to get more." It seemed pretty reasonable to me, since the post flowed well with the pictures chosen and might not have if the author tried to cram them all in. Hanlon's razor and all that.
pure-awesome 8y ago
There's a place to generate your own pictures at the bottom of the article, if you want more. (The "Try It Yourself" link) Given this, you certainly don't have to subscribe to get more of these pics.
tomtimtall 8y ago
Dark pattern? The author is advertising a mailing list, not stealing your social security number. The author is providing all of this content free of charge and giving you an opportunity to get more free content if you subscribe. There is nothing dark about this it’s extremely benign, and quite frankly how things used to work for most of the web 20 years ago. So very much Web 1.0. You can’t treat every individual blogger like they are Facebook. If my neighbor knocks on my door asking for sugar that’s not a problem, even if it would be a problem if sugar corporations hired 2 million people to knock up everyone in my neighborhood every day for a year asking for a cup of sugar to increase demand.

yeukhon 8y ago

Some people are shady af. Author should come here and explain.

chucksmash 8y ago
This isn't a dark pattern, it isn't shady af, and the author should not be called to the rug to answer for it. It's just someone trying to build an email distribution list for their (side?) gig. Feel free to enjoy the content without opting in.
- yeukhon 8y ago
  Oh please. It’s a clickbait at best from my angry engineer tone. It’s shady because the person lure people in to read it and then at the end just day “btw, if you want to see them? Send me your email!” How is that not shady marketing? This is bad press. Bad article. This is killing reader morale. We should not encourage people like this to build their gigs. I felt I wasted my time reading this in the first place.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ehnto 8y ago
    Did you see the pictures? I noticed they didn't show on mobile. The article had a number of them. I imagine they probably generated dozens of them.
    - spongeb00b 8y ago
      Had to browse in landscape - the images went off the right side of the screen but the page won’t allow you to zoom out or scroll horizontally.
  - monadgonad 8y ago
    > How is that not shady marketing? Because you’ve already seen the good content! This blog highlights the most amusing/weird examples of stuff generated by AI. This particular post has 17 - I counted - examples. They’re not presented as a listicle or one-by-one slides, there’s not an advert between each one. This is exactly the sort of content we should be encouraging.
    - yeukhon 8y ago
      No. I disagree. Just because it has 17 examples doesn’t mean it’s not a markrting strategy.
      - monadgonad 8y ago
        I didn't say it's not a marketing strategy, but it's really not shady. Again, you've already seen the best content. The rest is an optional, barely-mentioned extra.

andrewflnr 8y ago

Perhaps I'm naive, but I read it as, "I don't want to spam this blog post with a bunch of pictures that aren't the absolute cream of the crop, but if you're really into it, here's how to get more." It seemed pretty reasonable to me, since the post flowed well with the pictures chosen and might not have if the author tried to cram them all in. Hanlon's razor and all that.

pure-awesome 8y ago

There's a place to generate your own pictures at the bottom of the article, if you want more. (The "Try It Yourself" link) Given this, you certainly don't have to subscribe to get more of these pics.

tomtimtall 8y ago

Dark pattern? The author is advertising a mailing list, not stealing your social security number. The author is providing all of this content free of charge and giving you an opportunity to get more free content if you subscribe. There is nothing dark about this it’s extremely benign, and quite frankly how things used to work for most of the web 20 years ago. So very much Web 1.0. You can’t treat every individual blogger like they are Facebook. If my neighbor knocks on my door asking for sugar that’s not a problem, even if it would be a problem if sugar corporations hired 2 million people to knock up everyone in my neighborhood every day for a year asking for a cup of sugar to increase demand.