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Back in ~2012 or so I worked for framesdirect, at the time owned by Luxottica, and was asked by one of their executives from France to work on a feature that wo

Back in ~2012 or so I worked for framesdirect, at the time owned by Luxottica, and was asked by one of their executives from France to work on a feature that would, when someone tried to leave the site, bring up a popup to offer them a deal or otherwise encourage them not to leave. Since I hated working there anyway, and had the financial freedom and job prospects to find other work I didn't hesitate to say "no, I will not do that", and he looked at me like I was a total asshole. But if I had been in a worse economy for programmers at the time, or hard up for money, I wouldn't have been able to make that choice so easily. It is something that makes me very sad, especially since 99% of websites now have dark patterns similar to this. Most notable the modal popups that come up moments after a page loads and you have started to read it. I back out immediately whenever I can but obviously I am in the minority, this bullshit must "work" on some level to have become so ubiquitous. Anyway if you should ever be asked to do a modal popup, and get fired for saying no, apply at Olo, we so far have never asked developers to do a dark pattern.

RansomStark 5y ago
> Most notable the modal popups that come up moments after a page loads and you have started to read it. I back out immediately whenever I can but obviously I am in the minority, this bullshit must "work" on some level to have become so ubiquitous. I fully agree with you here and if i could leave every site that did this I would be happier, but there are a couple that do this that I have little choice but to interact with: - a hardware components website, pretty much the only good one in the UK that will ship individual parts, if you even move your mouse point towards the top right corner (this is also where the basket and login buttons live) up comes the model "Please don't leave" in big bold letters. - a digital whiteboard used for work purposes, this one is a little more bad design than anything. if you login with an @example.com email address every so often instead of dropping you to the workspace you were hoping to get, it drops you to a page showing teams of other people from example.com, and a modal asking you if you are interested in getting more from the tool. This is most annoying when it's a customer meeting and one or two of your team get lost in this way (the links to get from the team page to the board is non-obvious, and if it's your turn to get the redirect, logging out and back in does not work) During one customer call it happened to the security SME got caught by the value redirect (it was a security discussion I was facilitating, the security SME was the star of the show), not realising my mic was on I loudly shouted CRAP!. That's when I realised this is CRAP, the modal begging me not to leave, the redirects to show extra value, its all CRAP - Customer Retention by Annoying Popup and I hate it.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >I fully agree with you here and if i could leave every site that did this I would be happier, but there are a couple that do this that I have little choice but to interact with: You can use ublock origin to block the modals / pop-ups. I did it for a lot of websites.
sizzle 5y ago
There are some scummy sites that literally hijack your browser history and overwrite it with links to the current page you are on, so clicking the back arrow does nothing. This always gets under my skin as an extremely hostile dark pattern to keep me locked on their page against my will. Has anyone experienced this obnoxious browser history hijacking in Chrome? How do they pull this off and how can we report it so it stops being exploited?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
randmeerkat 5y ago
Modals are frustrating, but what I find truly appalling is the Uyghur slave labor that companies like Amazon profit from.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  Actually it's customers like us who benefit from it. Amazons are just the facilitators. The comfort, the low cost, the ease….
  - randmeerkat 5y ago
    > Amazons are just the facilitators. The profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht. https://www.geekwire.com/2021/see-worthy-first-look-jeff-bezos-reported-500m-superyacht-netherlands-shipyard/ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/see-worthy-first-look-jeff-bez...
    - gruez 5y ago
      >The profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht. Source? That claim isn't supported anywhere in the geekwire article. It doesn't even talk about "labor", let alone "slave labor" or "Uyghur slave labor".
      - randmeerkat 5y ago
        > Source? That claim isn't supported anywhere in the geekwire article. It doesn't even talk about "labor", let alone "slave labor" or "Uyghur slave labor". There’s plenty of sources documenting Amazon’s profits from Uyghur slave labor. Here’s one: https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/apple-amazon-sony-samsung-uighur-forced-labor-china/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/apple-amazon-sony-samsung...
        gruez 5y ago
        The article claims "Amazon [...] benefiting from the forced labor of Uighur Muslims in China", but that really just translates into "amazon buys goods made from factories in reeducation camps in Xinjiang". That doesn't really contradict or refute what the parent poster said, which is that consumers are the ultimate benefactors (presumably from lower prices). I suppose your claim that "profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht" is technically true, but that's more due to weasel wording than anything else. The sentence gives an impression that one of the reasons why bezos could buy the yacht was because of Uighur labor, but strictly speaking the "profit" could be anywhere between one cent to half a billion dollars.
liveinspain55 5y ago
Others can correct me, but I don't think that's an example of a dark pattern. Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing. Thinking about Exit Intent and how to optimize for it is a fairly well established part of online eCommerce. I think you made the wrong choice and your boss was probably right to be annoyed with you. It's within their prerogative to decide what user experience they offer to their users. And obviously, it's also yours to quit, but if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing. We'll call it shitty pattern if you dislike dark pattern.
  - liveinspain55 5y ago
    fine. Dark patterns involve a deliberate attempt to defraud/deceive. Expanding the definition is not helpful.
- kybernetikos 5y ago
  > if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself. I expect that they refused to implement it because it was a practice they felt was bad ethically rather than because it matched some industry definition.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Definitely a dark pattern, for the record.
  - liveinspain55 5y ago
    if you can provide a source I'll be glad to see it. I checked multiple lists of dark patterns before posting.
loteck 5y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there a pretty big difference between a "moral compromise" and a modal to entice a potential customer to buy? I'm not clear on how enticement even comes close to being a "dark pattern" as I understand the term.
- ehnto 5y ago
  When someone tries to navigate away they wanted to stop them. A real world analogue would be if I tried to leave a store and someone blocked my way to try and make me buy something. That's insane behavior, I don't owe your business or site anything, least of all my time. Those are the kindest words I can find for that behavior.
  - evan_ 5y ago
    But assuming it’s just a div that appears when you mouse off at the top, it doesn’t actually do anything to stop them. It’s not outrageous for a shopkeeper to say “don’t go!” or something like that as you’re leaving. It’s annoying and tacky but it’s not analogous to being held hostage.
    - nickthegreek 5y ago
      In the olden days, a website could pop up a dialog box that would lock browser interaction til it was dealt with. It was abused. A lot. This was way prior to 2012 tho.
    - addaon 5y ago
      2012. A modal dialog was probably a javascript alert(), which at the time was model for the whole browser and would prevent navigation until dismissed.
      - gruez 5y ago
        I just tested with an older version of firefox (10.0, released January 31, 2012), and it had non-modal alert() dialogs.
nefitty 5y ago
Thanks for taking a stand and sharing your experience. That takes bravery. And thanks for acknowledging that that is not always an option for all of us. For each one of those "No"s there are probably so many half-hearted and exasperated "Ok"'s. In aggregate we get to the point we're at, one little water droplet at a time. I'm optimistic though, because the same force works the other way too.
Glyptodon 5y ago
I found a new job after having to remove unsubscribe features and replace them with phone numbers to call at my first job out of college (among other questionable practices).
allisdust 5y ago
Even if we assume it's a dark pattern, don't you agree it's not your decision to reject it or not. The moral decision is the company/product team's. You can raise the points on why it shouldn't be done but straight away rejecting it is childish. End of the day they must have gotten it done with someone else and you would have done it anyway (as per your words) if financial situation isn't good.
- itronitron 5y ago
  Morals don't only kick in at a certain level of the management hierarchy, and some might argue that they drop off instead.
- aught 5y ago
  Childish, no. “They’ll just get someone else to do it if I don’t.” It’s your responsibility to raise points, it’s your choice to accept that premise, swallow your spine and do it anyway. Injury by spine swallowing is cumulative each one relatively harmless until it isn’t
- gpderetta 5y ago
  "I was just following orders" was never a tight defense.

RansomStark 5y ago

> Most notable the modal popups that come up moments after a page loads and you have started to read it. I back out immediately whenever I can but obviously I am in the minority, this bullshit must "work" on some level to have become so ubiquitous. I fully agree with you here and if i could leave every site that did this I would be happier, but there are a couple that do this that I have little choice but to interact with: - a hardware components website, pretty much the only good one in the UK that will ship individual parts, if you even move your mouse point towards the top right corner (this is also where the basket and login buttons live) up comes the model "Please don't leave" in big bold letters. - a digital whiteboard used for work purposes, this one is a little more bad design than anything. if you login with an @example.com email address every so often instead of dropping you to the workspace you were hoping to get, it drops you to a page showing teams of other people from example.com, and a modal asking you if you are interested in getting more from the tool. This is most annoying when it's a customer meeting and one or two of your team get lost in this way (the links to get from the team page to the board is non-obvious, and if it's your turn to get the redirect, logging out and back in does not work) During one customer call it happened to the security SME got caught by the value redirect (it was a security discussion I was facilitating, the security SME was the star of the show), not realising my mic was on I loudly shouted CRAP!. That's when I realised this is CRAP, the modal begging me not to leave, the redirects to show extra value, its all CRAP - Customer Retention by Annoying Popup and I hate it.

DeathArrow 5y ago
>I fully agree with you here and if i could leave every site that did this I would be happier, but there are a couple that do this that I have little choice but to interact with: You can use ublock origin to block the modals / pop-ups. I did it for a lot of websites.

sizzle 5y ago

There are some scummy sites that literally hijack your browser history and overwrite it with links to the current page you are on, so clicking the back arrow does nothing. This always gets under my skin as an extremely hostile dark pattern to keep me locked on their page against my will. Has anyone experienced this obnoxious browser history hijacking in Chrome? How do they pull this off and how can we report it so it stops being exploited?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

randmeerkat 5y ago

Modals are frustrating, but what I find truly appalling is the Uyghur slave labor that companies like Amazon profit from.

crossroadsguy 5y ago
Actually it's customers like us who benefit from it. Amazons are just the facilitators. The comfort, the low cost, the ease….
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  > Amazons are just the facilitators. The profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht. https://www.geekwire.com/2021/see-worthy-first-look-jeff-bezos-reported-500m-superyacht-netherlands-shipyard/ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/see-worthy-first-look-jeff-bez...
  - gruez 5y ago
    >The profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht. Source? That claim isn't supported anywhere in the geekwire article. It doesn't even talk about "labor", let alone "slave labor" or "Uyghur slave labor".
    - randmeerkat 5y ago
      > Source? That claim isn't supported anywhere in the geekwire article. It doesn't even talk about "labor", let alone "slave labor" or "Uyghur slave labor". There’s plenty of sources documenting Amazon’s profits from Uyghur slave labor. Here’s one: https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/apple-amazon-sony-samsung-uighur-forced-labor-china/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/apple-amazon-sony-samsung...
      - gruez 5y ago
        The article claims "Amazon [...] benefiting from the forced labor of Uighur Muslims in China", but that really just translates into "amazon buys goods made from factories in reeducation camps in Xinjiang". That doesn't really contradict or refute what the parent poster said, which is that consumers are the ultimate benefactors (presumably from lower prices). I suppose your claim that "profit that Bezos has realized from Uyghur slave labor is part of the reason he was able to buy a half billion dollar yacht" is technically true, but that's more due to weasel wording than anything else. The sentence gives an impression that one of the reasons why bezos could buy the yacht was because of Uighur labor, but strictly speaking the "profit" could be anywhere between one cent to half a billion dollars.

liveinspain55 5y ago

Others can correct me, but I don't think that's an example of a dark pattern. Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing. Thinking about Exit Intent and how to optimize for it is a fairly well established part of online eCommerce. I think you made the wrong choice and your boss was probably right to be annoyed with you. It's within their prerogative to decide what user experience they offer to their users. And obviously, it's also yours to quit, but if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself.

DeathArrow 5y ago
>Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing. We'll call it shitty pattern if you dislike dark pattern.
- liveinspain55 5y ago
  fine. Dark patterns involve a deliberate attempt to defraud/deceive. Expanding the definition is not helpful.
kybernetikos 5y ago
> if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself. I expect that they refused to implement it because it was a practice they felt was bad ethically rather than because it matched some industry definition.
dboreham 5y ago
Definitely a dark pattern, for the record.
- liveinspain55 5y ago
  if you can provide a source I'll be glad to see it. I checked multiple lists of dark patterns before posting.

loteck 5y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there a pretty big difference between a "moral compromise" and a modal to entice a potential customer to buy? I'm not clear on how enticement even comes close to being a "dark pattern" as I understand the term.

ehnto 5y ago
When someone tries to navigate away they wanted to stop them. A real world analogue would be if I tried to leave a store and someone blocked my way to try and make me buy something. That's insane behavior, I don't owe your business or site anything, least of all my time. Those are the kindest words I can find for that behavior.
- evan_ 5y ago
  But assuming it’s just a div that appears when you mouse off at the top, it doesn’t actually do anything to stop them. It’s not outrageous for a shopkeeper to say “don’t go!” or something like that as you’re leaving. It’s annoying and tacky but it’s not analogous to being held hostage.
  - nickthegreek 5y ago
    In the olden days, a website could pop up a dialog box that would lock browser interaction til it was dealt with. It was abused. A lot. This was way prior to 2012 tho.
  - addaon 5y ago
    2012. A modal dialog was probably a javascript alert(), which at the time was model for the whole browser and would prevent navigation until dismissed.
    - gruez 5y ago
      I just tested with an older version of firefox (10.0, released January 31, 2012), and it had non-modal alert() dialogs.

nefitty 5y ago

Thanks for taking a stand and sharing your experience. That takes bravery. And thanks for acknowledging that that is not always an option for all of us. For each one of those "No"s there are probably so many half-hearted and exasperated "Ok"'s. In aggregate we get to the point we're at, one little water droplet at a time. I'm optimistic though, because the same force works the other way too.

Glyptodon 5y ago

I found a new job after having to remove unsubscribe features and replace them with phone numbers to call at my first job out of college (among other questionable practices).

allisdust 5y ago

Even if we assume it's a dark pattern, don't you agree it's not your decision to reject it or not. The moral decision is the company/product team's. You can raise the points on why it shouldn't be done but straight away rejecting it is childish. End of the day they must have gotten it done with someone else and you would have done it anyway (as per your words) if financial situation isn't good.

itronitron 5y ago
Morals don't only kick in at a certain level of the management hierarchy, and some might argue that they drop off instead.
aught 5y ago
Childish, no. “They’ll just get someone else to do it if I don’t.” It’s your responsibility to raise points, it’s your choice to accept that premise, swallow your spine and do it anyway. Injury by spine swallowing is cumulative each one relatively harmless until it isn’t
gpderetta 5y ago
"I was just following orders" was never a tight defense.