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Comment by pmcgrathm | Hacker News Reader

It is surprising to me that this feels so negative to you. Every large social tech company - Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Groupon, LivingSocial (RIP), Tinder - have all used tactics similar to what you label 'dark patterns' to bootstrap their businesses.

If I am building a network driven product like a dating app or social network, you better be damn sure that it is going to be using 'growth hacking' (read:scraping) methods to increase the viral coefficient per user.

Would it also be news to you if I told you that 719 singles in your zip code did not, actually, want to see you tonight?

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>It is surprising to me that this feels so negative to you. Every large social tech company - Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Groupon, LivingSocial (RIP), Tinder - have all used tactics similar to what you label 'dark patterns' to bootstrap their businesses.

That doesn't make it acceptable.

The people who fund, manage and work for these types of companies should be blacklisted in the industry.

Seems like you want to make a black list that is very very long. It will be interesting to see groups who tries to blacklist these companies.

> Seems like you want to make a black list that is very very long.

Probably. But it's long exactly because people are not willing to blacklist as much as they should.

The market is under no obligation to respect you. In fact, competitive pressures push everyone towards exploiting you as much as it is possible. So the limit of crap we're being served is the same as what we're willing to endure.

And no matter how big LinkedIn gets, I will not forgive them for spamming me five years ago when they were just starting. It was unacceptable then, it is unacceptable now, and it informed me right away that they are not the sort of company that I want to interact with.

And, more importantly, it is a company that you do not want to ruin your contacts view of you.

LinkedIn is like 15 years old. I was getting spam from them back in college.

> It is surprising to me that this feels so negative to you. Every large social tech company - Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Groupon, LivingSocial (RIP), Tinder - have all used tactics similar to what you label 'dark patterns' to bootstrap their businesses.

Yes, LinkedIn is well known for essentially spreading itself like a virus with a bunch of interactions unknown to the user and that's exactly why no one should be using it. If I see that someone has a LinkedIn profile it's pretty much a minus nowadays.

How dare people feel manipulated when small companies use dark UI patterns when big companies do it too. That is a false dichotomy if I see one.

I think you meant to type hypocrisy. It's definitely an example of a double standard, not a false choice.

This was why I stopped using LinkedIn an Groupon though. The others are slightly deceptive, but not to the point of blatantly invading privacy like that.

Frankly, judging from your profile, I'm afraid to be a Netflix customer now.

I wasn't remotely surprised when the NSA's numerous electronic surveillance programs were made public. Doesn't mean I approve.

In more civilised countries these practices are actually illegal.

Just saying.

The more civilized countries still let a lot of shit like this fly. Most of the advertising industry we have today would not exist in an actually civilized world.

Then we should start here and make sure that it at least doesn't become more companies doing these things.

I have all @facebook.com email on blacklist on my email server because I get daily spam from Facebook trying to get me to spend more time on the page, even with everything turned off.

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