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Comment by rini17 | Hacker News Reader

OK, let's say I won't tolerate it. What do I do?

crickets

And no, average users have never avoided scams, email spam is older than web.

I try to respond to dark patterns with a 1 star review on trustpilot and google maps making clear that it signaled a lack of trustworthiness.

The last time I ran into one (call to cancel for insurance) I also filed an official complaint and made it clear it was the sole reason I was dumping them in favor of a competitor.

It's not much of a punch back but it probably had an effect.

Then may the people follow your lead. Or not. Either way the market will follow the money.

the market might also follow regulation.

that's how we got clean air and water. Just saying.

I am not a cricket. I told you what to do, dont use that software, dont accept the license or terms, uninstall, deactivate, deny. Read a book, go hiking. You arent forced to use shit software.

Oh boy, tell me how you do tax reports with the amazing experience of pen, paper and standing in a window. I bet you're outsourcing misery rather than avoiding it.

The government services dont show me any ads or dark patterns. How is it where you live? Does the IRS really try to trick you?

Heck yes they do!

Of course not “intentionally” but if you manage to have an even slightly complex tax situation and not get tricked and report something wrong, props to you!

Sure, but then they just send you a letter correcting your mistake, you OK it if it looks right, and either they send you a check or you send them a check. You don't have to pay a fine and you don't get audited.

(I am not a tax lawyer nor an accountant, but I have done this 4 out of the last 6 years.)

Filing taxes by mail is trivial. I’m not sure your point is coming across here.

Don't like something? Take your money elsewhere, and make sure to tell why on social media, even if you don't have large following. Besides making bad practices unnoticeably less profitable this normalises caring about this. In the future we will see more business will see practices that you like as advantageous.

Sometimes there’s no elsewhere. Sometimes elsewhere only has crickets. It feels like you can’t both have a successful product and one that is free of noise. Only some open source software succeeds at this and even then quality often suffers immensely.

There is obviously no magical quick denoising solution. But we still can demand less noise and patronise providers that at least pretend to listen.

Voting with your dollars does cede a lot of power to the wealthy, since they have most of the money and represent a small portion of the population.

I think you have it backwards. Wealthy already have all the power they need. Everyone else has zero power, unless they organise, pool their resources or at least choose to move in same direction independently.

It’s a matter of phrasing. We all have power available to us if only we organize. If we choose not to organize we are letting the wealthy have the power.

But anyway I agree with you that we need to organize. Voting with our dollars as atomic individuals works in limited ways but won’t change things on a large scale.

> Don't like something? Take your money elsewhere,

If you have a phone with open-source firmware for the modem, I will buy it immediately. Who is taking my money?

Is modem firmware really the piece of software in you're more concerned about or at all? But still, if you want to see something changed on this front - give money to Purism or Pine64. Make sure to tell them that you'll continue your support if they continue moving in same direction.

Withing 15 years, there will be microchips in your seat, table, and the packaging of your bread. And your iToaster will not toast unauthorised bread.

I am concerned about firmware because it is being used to take ownership of our devices away from us.

Oh, you could fix your device by replacing the chip, but we own the firmware and it's a crime to copy it. Also we can uodate the device at any time and add or remove fubctionality without you even knowing.

try buying a ticket to a concert by avoiding ticketmaster and you’ll find yourself not going to concerts…

I can’t subscribe to any local newspaper without a digital opt-in and a phone opt-out…

…a bunch of these services are much harder to avoid than you think

I agree that most of the time with entrenched players it looks like there are no outs. But let's try to look at your example of ticketmaster. Your options depend on how much you are invested in concert-going as entertainment. If not much - stopping altogether might be preferable to further feeding the beast. If a lot - you can explore your local musical scene of amateur bands. The ones that play in bars and other venues that probably don't even sell tickets, or at least do it without relying on ticketmaster. Sure, you'll lose access to stadium-kind of experience, but there will be no change without at least some sacrifices.

I've never been to a stadium gig. I've been to concert-hall shows, with letter/number seating, and no grooving in the aisles; the ticketing experience was horrible. The shows were good, in a way; but I've always much preferred pub gigs and student-union gigs, where you just pay cash at the door.

I live in a major city and even the small and mid-sized venues use ticketmaster… I go to very small shows (basement shows, very small bars) which does sometimes avoid it, but if the band you like is even remotely successful you’re back in ticketmaster’s realm

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