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That's the real problem. Being aggressively annoying works. Dark patterns work. Popups that grab your attention work. Flashing text conveying urgency works. Thu

That's the real problem. Being aggressively annoying works. Dark patterns work. Popups that grab your attention work. Flashing text conveying urgency works. Thumbnails with open-mouth YouTube-face work. Moving buttons around so people mis-click works. Tiny [X] buttons that make people accidentally click an ad work. You're never going to convince someone to stop doing something that is making them money.

gigatree 2mo ago
Absolutely. Maybe the answer is that everyone should just rank them up to 11 until it stops working and then people have to get creative again.
toyg 2mo ago
The tech field is increasingly devoid of any resemblance of morality. I guess it's the inevitable parable of anything started by '70s hippies: sooner or later, we all sell out.
- theappsecguy 2mo ago
  I think most fields are like that..?
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    The entire system of capitalism is like that, and the system is shutting down the parts that aren't like that, and replacing them with ones that are.
- vovavili 2mo ago
  Leaving money on the table is never easy.
wakamoleguy 2mo ago
On the extreme side, things like blackmail and fraud are generally illegal, even if they can make you money. Most of these dark patterns that "work" tend to follow a similar pattern: by taking advantage of the target, one can extract more money from them. I would possibly be a terrible salesperson, because these all give me the ick. Your product should provide an offer of genuine value.
gtowey 2mo ago
Yes, but on whom does it work? Does it work because you're taking advantage of a group of people who are extremely vulnerable to manipulation? People who already struggle with impulse control, who are prone to making bad financial decisions? The elderly, kids? We have to escape this mentality that anything that makes money is valid, that the money itself is the validation of "rightness". Some of us, just some think that maybe enterprises that prey on the vulnerable just don't deserve to be in business. Otherwise everything might as well be payday loans and online gambling. I'm not saying OP is definitely in that category, but I would encourage them to think long and hard about weather or not using dark patterns to goose their sales is really the kind of world we want to be fostering.
- d3rockk 2mo ago
  >Yes, but on whom does it work? Hitting the nail on the head here-> know your target audience.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- danillonunes 2mo ago
  Well, if you own an online casino, I guess your moral compass is already so skewed that you simple don't care. On the other hand, if you own an online mom & pop store that sells clothes for puppies, you rationalize that the impact of those manipulations is not that big of a deal. You're not ruining anyone's live by the single act of persuading them to purchase $100 worth of apparel for mr. pancake.
- sarreph 2mo ago
  > people who are extremely vulnerable to manipulation I think this is a gross over-exaggeration, otherwise dark patterns wouldn't work at the magnitude (majority of the buying population) they do. I say this not disagreeing with your point: > We have to escape this mentality that anything that makes money is valid, that the money itself is the validation of "rightness".
  - DavidPiper 2mo ago
RoddaWallPro 2mo ago
That's the real problem: selling drugs works! Forming a cartel to produce and distribute addictive products, killing anyone who gets in your way? It's effective! You're never going to convince someone to stop killing people and dumping their bodies into culverts when they're making money. It's just not reasonable to expect that, or do anything about it.
- TZubiri 2mo ago
  Nuance: if someone actually bought the product 1 hour ago, it's fine. If not, it's fraud.
  - yencabulator 2mo ago
    And if the drugs do make you feel good, that's not fraud either.
cm11 2mo ago
Very much agree, but also (not saying you're saying otherwise) stealing, lying, entitlement (which is possibly just stealing and lying), and scamming "work." These are checked in large part by a person's aversion to it not just by its lack of working. Of course dark patterns work. If what one says increasingly inches towards 100% misrepresention (but shy of it), people will "mistake" what's being said. "Mistake" doing a lot of blame shifting. "You're never going to convince someone to stop doing something that is making them money." Reasonable, but I would soften from "never". There was less of it at one point—and it seems logical to guess we have less today than we'll have tomorrow. The main reason is likely that we simply didn't know about these tricks yet, but somewhere below that on the list of the reasons is that some people dropped off from doing it at lesser forms of misrepresentation. Or they made the case against it at work resulting in them either winning (and their projects perhaps did less well) or them losing and being overrun by those more willing. With losing possible also leading towards leaving, not getting promoted, or getting fired. This is just a way to say that there are people who do forgo money, they just might not be around or visible for various reasons. And, as implied by the difficulty of convincing people to not make money, their (former) coworkers prefer that on some level even if they don't believe they agree with stealing or lying. But losing or earning less money is not the same as having no choice.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  There used to be less data to optimise from. Doing ordinary business is a low risk strategy, compared to dark patterns. Now we have data to enable us to do dark patterns without risk.
xtracto 2mo ago
Spamming image based penny stocks emails also worked; doesn't make it right. Advertising should.be illegal.
- dieselgate 2mo ago
  > Advertising should.be illegal. I dislike advertising as much as the next guy but wouldn't go so far as making it illegal
  - xtracto 2mo ago
    I was thinking of this post that made the rounds here some weeks ago: https://simone.org/advertising/ https://simone.org/advertising/
    - dieselgate 2mo ago
      Thank you for the follow up link, it brings up good points. I think the 1st Amendment angle is too quickly brushed off by the author and not sure how this would be settled in a legal dispute--especially considering the means and depth of advertising and tech companies. The article is worth reading and great food for thought. Isn't this a part of legally excluding under-18s from using social media?
      - inigyou 2mo ago
        If giving out anti-draft pamphlets is considered by the courts to be equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theatre then why couldn't advertising?
        shimman 2mo ago
        Seriously. I did not consent to these companies to be manipulated into giving them money. It's an invasion of the public sphere, and worse it is highly authoritarian which should always be resisted on principle.
  - 2mo ago
unselect5917 2mo ago
I hate that you're right. Short term gains for long term suffering, though? Just another horror beyond our comprehension?

gigatree 2mo ago

Absolutely. Maybe the answer is that everyone should just rank them up to 11 until it stops working and then people have to get creative again.

toyg 2mo ago

The tech field is increasingly devoid of any resemblance of morality. I guess it's the inevitable parable of anything started by '70s hippies: sooner or later, we all sell out.

theappsecguy 2mo ago
I think most fields are like that..?
- inigyou 2mo ago
  The entire system of capitalism is like that, and the system is shutting down the parts that aren't like that, and replacing them with ones that are.
vovavili 2mo ago
Leaving money on the table is never easy.

wakamoleguy 2mo ago

On the extreme side, things like blackmail and fraud are generally illegal, even if they can make you money. Most of these dark patterns that "work" tend to follow a similar pattern: by taking advantage of the target, one can extract more money from them. I would possibly be a terrible salesperson, because these all give me the ick. Your product should provide an offer of genuine value.

gtowey 2mo ago

Yes, but on whom does it work? Does it work because you're taking advantage of a group of people who are extremely vulnerable to manipulation? People who already struggle with impulse control, who are prone to making bad financial decisions? The elderly, kids? We have to escape this mentality that anything that makes money is valid, that the money itself is the validation of "rightness". Some of us, just some think that maybe enterprises that prey on the vulnerable just don't deserve to be in business. Otherwise everything might as well be payday loans and online gambling. I'm not saying OP is definitely in that category, but I would encourage them to think long and hard about weather or not using dark patterns to goose their sales is really the kind of world we want to be fostering.

d3rockk 2mo ago
>Yes, but on whom does it work? Hitting the nail on the head here-> know your target audience.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
danillonunes 2mo ago
Well, if you own an online casino, I guess your moral compass is already so skewed that you simple don't care. On the other hand, if you own an online mom & pop store that sells clothes for puppies, you rationalize that the impact of those manipulations is not that big of a deal. You're not ruining anyone's live by the single act of persuading them to purchase $100 worth of apparel for mr. pancake.
sarreph 2mo ago
> people who are extremely vulnerable to manipulation I think this is a gross over-exaggeration, otherwise dark patterns wouldn't work at the magnitude (majority of the buying population) they do. I say this not disagreeing with your point: > We have to escape this mentality that anything that makes money is valid, that the money itself is the validation of "rightness".
- DavidPiper 2mo ago

RoddaWallPro 2mo ago

That's the real problem: selling drugs works! Forming a cartel to produce and distribute addictive products, killing anyone who gets in your way? It's effective! You're never going to convince someone to stop killing people and dumping their bodies into culverts when they're making money. It's just not reasonable to expect that, or do anything about it.

TZubiri 2mo ago
Nuance: if someone actually bought the product 1 hour ago, it's fine. If not, it's fraud.
- yencabulator 2mo ago
  And if the drugs do make you feel good, that's not fraud either.

cm11 2mo ago

Very much agree, but also (not saying you're saying otherwise) stealing, lying, entitlement (which is possibly just stealing and lying), and scamming "work." These are checked in large part by a person's aversion to it not just by its lack of working. Of course dark patterns work. If what one says increasingly inches towards 100% misrepresention (but shy of it), people will "mistake" what's being said. "Mistake" doing a lot of blame shifting. "You're never going to convince someone to stop doing something that is making them money." Reasonable, but I would soften from "never". There was less of it at one point—and it seems logical to guess we have less today than we'll have tomorrow. The main reason is likely that we simply didn't know about these tricks yet, but somewhere below that on the list of the reasons is that some people dropped off from doing it at lesser forms of misrepresentation. Or they made the case against it at work resulting in them either winning (and their projects perhaps did less well) or them losing and being overrun by those more willing. With losing possible also leading towards leaving, not getting promoted, or getting fired. This is just a way to say that there are people who do forgo money, they just might not be around or visible for various reasons. And, as implied by the difficulty of convincing people to not make money, their (former) coworkers prefer that on some level even if they don't believe they agree with stealing or lying. But losing or earning less money is not the same as having no choice.

inigyou 2mo ago
There used to be less data to optimise from. Doing ordinary business is a low risk strategy, compared to dark patterns. Now we have data to enable us to do dark patterns without risk.

xtracto 2mo ago

Spamming image based penny stocks emails also worked; doesn't make it right. Advertising should.be illegal.

dieselgate 2mo ago
> Advertising should.be illegal. I dislike advertising as much as the next guy but wouldn't go so far as making it illegal
- xtracto 2mo ago
  I was thinking of this post that made the rounds here some weeks ago: https://simone.org/advertising/ https://simone.org/advertising/
  - dieselgate 2mo ago
    Thank you for the follow up link, it brings up good points. I think the 1st Amendment angle is too quickly brushed off by the author and not sure how this would be settled in a legal dispute--especially considering the means and depth of advertising and tech companies. The article is worth reading and great food for thought. Isn't this a part of legally excluding under-18s from using social media?
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      If giving out anti-draft pamphlets is considered by the courts to be equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theatre then why couldn't advertising?
      - shimman 2mo ago
        Seriously. I did not consent to these companies to be manipulated into giving them money. It's an invasion of the public sphere, and worse it is highly authoritarian which should always be resisted on principle.
- 2mo ago

unselect5917 2mo ago

I hate that you're right. Short term gains for long term suffering, though? Just another horror beyond our comprehension?