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The dark pattern I've been seeing a lot lately is billing services trying to make you go paperless. I've seen all sorts of dark patterns around it, from subtle

The dark pattern I've been seeing a lot lately is billing services trying to make you go paperless. I've seen all sorts of dark patterns around it, from subtle things such as it being the second of three options where you need to check options 1 and 3 every month, to it literally being checked by default and buried in the middle of a "we are just checking up on you to make sure you have all your options set correctly" splash screen.

ryandrake 5y ago
Yup, I've been fooled into going paperless on my utility bills a number of times. No idea how I did it, AND they often get "confused" when you want to restore paper service. I've had to call PG&E a number of times recently and they still are failing to send paper bills.
lucb1e 5y ago
Genuine question: why'd you want bills to be shipped on paper? Is there some legal requirement to keep paper records in the USA and you don't want to have to own a printer or something? Every time I get a paper bill I'm annoyed, like, just send me an email, then I drag it into the right folder and it's done. Speedy, sortable, searchable. (Of course you will want to have back-ups, but one generally wants backups for one's files anyway.) The weirdest instance of this is my electricity company that has a fairly high price but also invests in renewable energy and they send me paper bills. Like, they of all companies should get that I don't want someone to drive to my house to deliver information that, usually, I already knew about anyway. Dutch tax office also takes their time to send me letters from abroad... two weeks after I already received it digitally and opened it. They can see I read it on their website, but they still post a physical letter more than a week later. And it always contains "you owe us nothing & we owe you nothing" because I don't live/work there anymore. So stupid, I hate letters, so I'm really curious why you'd want this!
- tobiasSoftware 5y ago
  For me personally, my wife is an immigrant so a paper trail is important. Before that though, I think there was a time where companies didn't email out the records, so they'd keep the records for a year or two and then you would lose access to them, but the IRS wants several years if you get audited. Nowadays though, if it wasn't for my personal situation then I probably would have switched to saving off a digital record.

ryandrake 5y ago

Yup, I've been fooled into going paperless on my utility bills a number of times. No idea how I did it, AND they often get "confused" when you want to restore paper service. I've had to call PG&E a number of times recently and they still are failing to send paper bills.

lucb1e 5y ago

Genuine question: why'd you want bills to be shipped on paper? Is there some legal requirement to keep paper records in the USA and you don't want to have to own a printer or something? Every time I get a paper bill I'm annoyed, like, just send me an email, then I drag it into the right folder and it's done. Speedy, sortable, searchable. (Of course you will want to have back-ups, but one generally wants backups for one's files anyway.) The weirdest instance of this is my electricity company that has a fairly high price but also invests in renewable energy and they send me paper bills. Like, they of all companies should get that I don't want someone to drive to my house to deliver information that, usually, I already knew about anyway. Dutch tax office also takes their time to send me letters from abroad... two weeks after I already received it digitally and opened it. They can see I read it on their website, but they still post a physical letter more than a week later. And it always contains "you owe us nothing & we owe you nothing" because I don't live/work there anymore. So stupid, I hate letters, so I'm really curious why you'd want this!

tobiasSoftware 5y ago
For me personally, my wife is an immigrant so a paper trail is important. Before that though, I think there was a time where companies didn't email out the records, so they'd keep the records for a year or two and then you would lose access to them, but the IRS wants several years if you get audited. Nowadays though, if it wasn't for my personal situation then I probably would have switched to saving off a digital record.