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Comment by JoachimSchipper | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that if you can't make money without tricking people, you shouldn't be in that particular branch of business.

You can argue that all you want, but Ryanair, which epitomises the application of dark patterns in every aspect of its operations, is the largest or second-largest carrier in the world on a number of metrics (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair).

If you want to tell them they shouldn't be in the airline business, sure, but I'm not quite sure what your argument is then.

And I as a customer am happy to have Ryanair, Airasia and other low cost carriers like those. Even if they do use dark patterns, they provide me with possibilities I didn't have before they appeared...

I have never been a customer of Ryanair. How difficult is it to navigate their dark patterns?

Can I be a customer without getting entangled?

It's not very difficult, you just have to be careful when filling the forms, they are a bit confusing...

For example to refuse the travel insurance policy you must choose that you don't want it in the country selection box...

Personally while I find it irritating, I find godaddy much worse and since unlike Ryanair they have cheap competitors without dark pattern I avoid them.

You will probably get caught out the first time or two - they charge you a cheap up front price but then add lots of little charges for all kinds of extras (luggage, checkin, that kind of thing). Once you know the system it works well.

My argument is "dark patterns bad, don't work on bad stuff", not "dark patterns don't work". Yes, some people will ignore the "bad" part and get rich doing so. That's not the only way to earn a living, though.

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