Types of Dark Patterns

isn't that just lying?

"click here for a refund." -> Okay, i gave you 200 airline credits which we count as a "refund" so you're set.

I can imagine how frustrated you are. I flew ~1,000 times and I've encountered about a dozen situations where I was really pissed off at some airline policy.

Two suggestions for you.

One: you might be, like me, a lucky one. Someone with an IT background, not too negatively affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Think about it for a second.

If my guess is wrong, apologies for assuming you fit that profile. Tell me more about how bad it is for you, if you'd like.

Two: you can deal with this issue by simply considering it "lost" money, and move on. Getting your real money back would be a pain in the ass. Right now, the Airline is still capable of giving you hours of rage and stress. Take away that power from them. End the issue in the fastest way possible.

It's a pity that these things happen. In a modern, just society, a company and its executives should be immediately punished for this kind of behavior.

Would you mind naming the company?

> Games such as World of Warcraft, which are considered very addictive, use several of these techniques.

I agree that games like WoW resemble skinner boxes, feature random rewards/simulated gambling, etc., but they don't seem deceptive or fraudulent in the same way that the dark patterns describe. It's more like addiction patterns designed to keep you subscribed? The social aspect also makes it stickier (and more fun) but doesn't seem sinister.

(But I think I would actually enjoy playing WoW, and it seems like it has a largely fixed monthly cost with fewer pay to win elements than gacha games. I do wonder about the time investment that is required to play an MMO though, and whether that is good for players, even if the game is fun to play.)

> Gamers' behavior can be “shaped” by making cycles (progress from one level to the next) slower and slower, designing complex tasks that are difficult to get out of (e.g. World of Warcraft), or conversely dividing them up in small chunks to avoid frustration (e.g., New Super Mario Bros.Wii).

Leveling slowdown is definitely a thing. But games including difficult tasks and breaking up challenges into chapters or chunks doesn't seem malicious. Games that challenge your brain, hand-eye coordination, etc. are often more fun because of that challenge. Fun seems more likely to happen when the difficulty curve is neither too hard nor too easy. Moreover, complex and difficult games are enjoyable to master, but can be overwhelming for the novice, so it makes sense to smooth the learning curve. Mario games (at least their console versions) seem pretty non-malicious to me.

Companies/developers should be ashamed they are deploying these tactics against children.

It just goes to show that if the action is legal, they will stop at nothing to earn the almighty dollar.

> The terrible truth is that a whole lot of us begged for a Skinner Box we could crawl into, because the real world's system of rewards is so much more slow and cruel than we expected it to be. In that, gaming is no different from other forms of mental escape, from sports fandom to moonshine.

This is my favorite bit from the linked Cracked article. As they point out, addictions (and distractions) serve a rational purpose: they fill a void when you feel disconnected, and help you escape from the cruelty of the real world. Unfortunately they can also harm your physical, mental, and financial health, damage relationships, and consume all of your time and attention.

But, you can actually afford a house in World of Warcraft or Animal Crossing (though I haven't paid off my loan yet.)

Let's try to list a few here.

    "Disguised Ads": Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram use this to make them look like the normal feed.
    "Hidden Costs" & "Sneak into Basket": Services for booking flights use this by adding by default insurance, donations, CO2 neutral costs.
    "Roach Motel": Most telecom companies are known to use this to keep you from being able to quit that contract, making the customer service hard to reach or asking you to go through a complex procedure to end your contract.
    "Misdirection": E-commerce platforms offering you xx% discount by increasing the original value of the low-grade product.
    "Price Comparison Prevention": I find it hard on amazon to search for a product sorted by "Lowest price first" because the search query just throws irrelevent and extremely cheap products. The only solution is to "sort by best" which keeps you from looking at cheaper and sometimes better options.

The futility of holding these platforms accountable is that users have no option if every major player in the market is using these strategies. Though this eventually allows novel platforms and services to emerge that focus on making users free from exactly these common fallacies of the major players. Eg. open source services that are ad-free.

Personally, I'd like to see regulation being imposed on this.

I'm an engineer with an IT background, and I can confidently say that most (if not all) of my friends who do not come from the same background have no idea what dark patterns are. Some might have that natural skepticism that when they see a dark pattern, they recognize it without even knowing. But I would argue that most people still don't, especially the older generations.

False advertising is already a crime. We should also extend this to dark patterns. It would (i) clean up UIs from the incredibly annoying popups and 'urgency-invoking' messages, (ii) protect consumers from making irrational decisions and, (iii) force companies to put resources into growing the business legitimately and organically, rather than putting resources into shady practices

I've had an idea for a browser extension that can actively warn you when you're dealing with a company that uses dark patterns.

For example, say you go to the NYTimes' subscription checkout. It lets you know "Hey, just so you know, they make it very hard to cancel. Here's more info etc."

Sort of like an ad blocker. If enough people install it, whoever is managing its database of dark patterns/warnings has the power to really punish companies for this kind of thing. Of course that also means they have great responsibility.

Good catch.

The likes of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and others, smartphones allow us to carry immense social environments in our pockets through every waking moment of our lives. Hence the "dopamine and social reward" one gets interacting in that social environment is what they use to get one hooked up.

We need a browser extension to change "Not Now" buttons to "Hell No!"

Intrusive popups and slideovers demanding you sign up for a spam list are definitely on my antipattern list.