A lot of businesses operate at the border of legality. Ryanair is a good example, as you have pointed out on IRC (see http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0302/ryanair.h

A lot of businesses operate at the border of legality. Ryanair is a good example, as you have pointed out on IRC (see http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0302/ryanair.html http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0302/ryanair.html). I'm not making a judgement as to whether you personally should build a business that uses dark patterns, my point is that in some lines of business, dark patterns are a critical survival factor, and if you try to be too "good" in those types of business you will get trampled by someone who's willing to squeeze every penny.