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In many free mobile apps, there's a very annoying dark pattern in ad screens. Often an ad is displayed, but close button is not yet visible. Often a timer is sh

by wsc981 5y ago

In many free mobile apps, there's a very annoying dark pattern in ad screens. Often an ad is displayed, but close button is not yet visible. Often a timer is shown however in the top right corner of the screen. Only after maybe looking 10-30 seconds to the ad, the close button appears. Sometimes the close button appears in a different corner as expected (I would expect same corner as the timer was displayed, e.g. top right corner). I assume the close button functionality is not controlled by the ad framework, but developed and maintained by the mobile developers behind the app. So the mobile devs should be able to make the functionality more user friendly, if they wanted to. I guess it's all trickery to make people more likely to accidentally click ads, but it's really annoying. Sometimes I wish I would be able to pay a small amount of money to remove the ads, but this is often not even possible.

anticristi 5y ago
When it's not possible to pay for removing the ads, consider decompiling the app and removing ads. While I hate depriving developers well-deserved revenue for their hard work, allowing me as a consumer to choose whether I pay with cash or attention takes precedence.
grishka 5y ago
On Android, the system back button works most of the time to close ads. You don't have to look at the ad screen at all to try to find a way out, at some point you just develop a reflex that makes it go away instantly without relying on advertiser's mercy. Or, block ads system-wide. There's an app called Blokada, and you can also use the DNS-o-TLS support ("private DNS") to do that.
runawaybottle 5y ago
I’ve specifically programmed stuff like that. Very specific specs are given to the devs to show a close button after a certain amount of time, only showing back/next buttons after a certain time/event, all mangled with deliberate tracking scripts that capture all of those user events. It wasn’t necessarily to increase clicks, but more so to prolong time on page, and sneak in more ads in between their browsing. When we were done jamming all this in, our boss took a look at it and said ‘increase the time before the buttons are visible, and show one more ad as well’. Relentless. Tracking the user and showing syndicated content/ads is more profitable than just charging them a flat fee for many businesses. The user experience did not matter at all to the stakeholders.

by wsc981 5y ago

anticristi 5y ago

When it's not possible to pay for removing the ads, consider decompiling the app and removing ads. While I hate depriving developers well-deserved revenue for their hard work, allowing me as a consumer to choose whether I pay with cash or attention takes precedence.

grishka 5y ago

On Android, the system back button works most of the time to close ads. You don't have to look at the ad screen at all to try to find a way out, at some point you just develop a reflex that makes it go away instantly without relying on advertiser's mercy. Or, block ads system-wide. There's an app called Blokada, and you can also use the DNS-o-TLS support ("private DNS") to do that.

runawaybottle 5y ago

I’ve specifically programmed stuff like that. Very specific specs are given to the devs to show a close button after a certain amount of time, only showing back/next buttons after a certain time/event, all mangled with deliberate tracking scripts that capture all of those user events. It wasn’t necessarily to increase clicks, but more so to prolong time on page, and sneak in more ads in between their browsing. When we were done jamming all this in, our boss took a look at it and said ‘increase the time before the buttons are visible, and show one more ad as well’. Relentless. Tracking the user and showing syndicated content/ads is more profitable than just charging them a flat fee for many businesses. The user experience did not matter at all to the stakeholders.