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> other than farming people for money Which is a beautiful way to live life. Until you quit your job and build some indie thing and try to make money and fuck

> other than farming people for money Which is a beautiful way to live life. Until you quit your job and build some indie thing and try to make money and fuck, that’s difficult. And you’re broke. And you worked really hard on this thing. Turns out ‘farming people for money’ = ‘paying rent’. And you realise, shit man, if I make it a bit worse according to my ethics and taste, I’ll actually make money. And I won’t have to go and take some other job. And I’ll be sad that this is how humans work, but it is how humans work, and am I going to change that or just tag along for the ride?

tokai 3y ago
Yeah well my life would be sweeter if I conned pensioners out of their savings. It's always easy to follow how people explain their unethical decisions - but it doesn't make them an inch less unethical though and people that use your line of thought to do harmful things are scum.
- cafeinux 3y ago
  Sign-up popups are annoying, but not inherently unethical. Nobody's on the street because one dev tried to convert people.
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    We’re not talking about sign-up pop-ups though. Those are an annoying fact of digital life that isn’t _really_ that bad. We’re talking about creating a flow and perception that you can use a thing built around an assumption that you then intentionally change at some next step. It’s a breakdown of an implicit contract you create with the user, for the purposes of farming data, getting more signups, increasing conversions, or whatever else. It’s just dishonest. A few years ago a family member contacted me about this very thing. They had found a nice looking website to accomplish a thing. The website had published pricing for packages of their service, and provided a “free” sample. Except after you spent all the time to get that free sample running, you couldn’t actually use it without paying.
    - DamonHD 3y ago
      If feels to me like estoppel: misleading someone to do something to then use against them later.
stubish 3y ago
It is a tragedy of the commons. My Internet is shittier because other people are trying to monetize it. Same as my back yard and the air I breath.
JohnFen 3y ago
What I hear you saying is that you're OK with harming others as long as it lines your pocket.
- DougN7 3y ago
  Harming? By asking for an email address?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    No, not by asking for an email address. By not asking for the email address until after the user has invested time and energy into things. That's pure psychological manipulation, and is harmful.

tokai 3y ago

Yeah well my life would be sweeter if I conned pensioners out of their savings. It's always easy to follow how people explain their unethical decisions - but it doesn't make them an inch less unethical though and people that use your line of thought to do harmful things are scum.

cafeinux 3y ago
Sign-up popups are annoying, but not inherently unethical. Nobody's on the street because one dev tried to convert people.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
  We’re not talking about sign-up pop-ups though. Those are an annoying fact of digital life that isn’t _really_ that bad. We’re talking about creating a flow and perception that you can use a thing built around an assumption that you then intentionally change at some next step. It’s a breakdown of an implicit contract you create with the user, for the purposes of farming data, getting more signups, increasing conversions, or whatever else. It’s just dishonest. A few years ago a family member contacted me about this very thing. They had found a nice looking website to accomplish a thing. The website had published pricing for packages of their service, and provided a “free” sample. Except after you spent all the time to get that free sample running, you couldn’t actually use it without paying.
  - DamonHD 3y ago
    If feels to me like estoppel: misleading someone to do something to then use against them later.

stubish 3y ago

It is a tragedy of the commons. My Internet is shittier because other people are trying to monetize it. Same as my back yard and the air I breath.

JohnFen 3y ago

What I hear you saying is that you're OK with harming others as long as it lines your pocket.

DougN7 3y ago
Harming? By asking for an email address?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  No, not by asking for an email address. By not asking for the email address until after the user has invested time and energy into things. That's pure psychological manipulation, and is harmful.