Hacker News Reader

Ironically the "my mom" and "but my grandparents" angle is what has always been used to dumb down and introduce user-hostile patterns.

Surprise, after 20 years the developers and managers assume they are building software for retarded un-learnable "grandparents and mothers", the end result is well stupid software.

If your user base is large enough, some significant faction of your users are in fact “retarded un-learnable,” though I might have put it more delicately.

And when there’s money involved, there’s always incentive to cater to your lowest common denominator user.

I’ve watched many in-person and remote use testing sessions, some people just have no clue how to use technology, yet you still have to design apps and websites for them to use. These people aren’t necessarily dumb or anything like that, they just don’t understand technology.

Most of the dark patterns are not due to dumbing down UI. They're either because nothing better is available (security), income would be reduced (ads, cookie warnings, software is deliberately crippled for non-professional versions), development is done by lowest bidder.

Yeah. It would actually be pretty cool if web sites and apps were dumbed down for a few things: denying cookies, deleting accounts, contacting support, unsubscribing from spam.

With dark patterns those things actually become more complicated.

> Ironically the "my mom" and "but my grandparents" angle is what has always been used to dumb down and introduce user-hostile patterns.

Dumbed down and user-hostile are independent things. Dark patterns are being introduced for nefarious purposes. No one is explaining away things like "click to subscribe, wait 3 hours in a phone queue to unsubscribe" as required for "grandmothers"

The software isn't stupid, it's intentionally and cleverly manipulative and user hostile.

> hard wait time to unsubscribe

It really is the grandmother excuse "you the user dont know what the unsubscribe button is doing, so we ask you to wait 3h and confirm 4 times because maybe you are clicking by mistake since you dont know where and what you are clicking".

No, it’s because it was A/B-tested with the result that the pattern retains more subscribers, which is good for KPI if not for the business.

This particular pattern is so dark that the FTC is cracking down on it[0]:

Under the enforcement policy statement issued today, businesses must follow three key requirements or be subject to law enforcement action, including potential civil penalties:

    Disclose clearly and conspicuously all material terms of the product or service, including how much it costs, deadlines by which the consumer must act to stop further charges, the amount and frequency of such charges, how to cancel, and information about the product or service itself that is needed to stop consumers from being deceived about the characteristics of the product or service. The statement provides detail on what clear and conspicuous means, particularly noting that the information must be provided upfront when the consumer first sees the offer and generally as prominent as the deal offer itself.

    Obtain the consumer’s express informed consent before charging them for a product or services. This includes obtaining the consumer’s acceptance of the negative option feature separately from other portions of the entire transaction, not including information that interferes with, detracts from, contradicts, or otherwise undermines the consumer’s ability to provide their express informed consent.

    Provide easy and simple cancellation to the consumer. Marketers should provide cancellation mechanisms that are at least as easy to use as the method the consumer used to buy the product or service in the first place.

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-r...

I don't think anyone is directly blaming the users here.

It is just a fact of life that a sizeable portion of users "accept" dark patterns, and PMs consider that as a sign of success.

However I strongly doubt users are doing it by choice. IMO it's actually because of lack of choices, lack of knowledge or learned helplessness.

That might be controversial, but to me the point is that A/B tests and KPIs are the wrong incentives, not that users are stupid.

> I don't think anyone is directly blaming the users here.

The comment I'm replying to is LITERALLY blaming "normal users" for these problems.

I said "directly" blaming, very important distinction.

The people making the garbage is still the ones to blame for the garbage itself. The reason people make such garbage is because a subset of people accept it. But nobody is saying the people accepting it are doing it out of an evilness (maybe they're saying it's out of "dumbness", but I would disagree with that too).

someone can say that people are allowing themselves to be victimized, without saying that the people doing the victimizing are in the right.

The comment however is wrong in that it is perhaps not possible for the users to keep themselves from being victimized, without some recourse to the law.

Normal users, as they represent by definition the largest numbers, are necessary to enable the network effects on which the Internet companies rely, and as a result they also put other, reluctant users in a position of minority, the position of the 'unreasonable', the position of the grumpy old fart, the position of the burden to support.

The mass, thus the normal user, is indeed the enabler.

I fall in the "grumpy old fart" category.

But this isn't the fault of users, "normal" or otherwise; enablers don't make people abuse alcohol or whatever. Alcoholics who blame their enablers are deceiving themselves, and if designers try to blame users for their design errors, they are making the same mistake.

A lot of the crapness, AFAICS, is down to mobile. Mobile browsers and desktop/laptop browsers are different, and are used differently. And mobile browsers aren't all alike. Since most website hits are now from mobiles, designers are optimising for mobile, and then their employers stop the project before the desktop/laptop work is done. This really annoys me, because I'm too blind and fat-fingered to use a mobile as much more than a phone.

I think the crapness of the modern web[1] is going to eventually result in a rebellion. Like, the crapness seems to be snowballing. I mean, popups? What? I thought we got rid of them 15 years ago, because they were crap. How come people think they're now OK?

[1] The OP spoke of "todays's internet experience", but all he spoke of was the web. The rest of the internet seems to be working as well, or better, than it was working yesterday.

"Enabler" is a good term, as in psychology enablers can often be victims too.

It’s pointing out that it’s a side effect of user market forces. The point is that users keep using these sites despite all of these annoying patterns.

It's blaming users for market forces though. It's kind of a lazy invocation of the just world fallacy: the users must be ok with it because otherwise they would have revolted if they werent.

I've accepted many a dark pattern because of sunk costs and a lack of energy, time or options. I dont always have the energy to fight and punish.

Ultimately market forces are about collective power, not a collective representation of "what people want". A lot of people would like us to blur the two but they are distinct.

The challenge is, when no notable end user group is coordinate enough to havd significant market force/power to push back, what else do you call it but ‘users accept it’.

Everyone I know hates Comcast and the defacto monopolies in many areas with internet service. (Among many examples). But except in a few small areas, no one seems to even be effectively pushing back.

‘We’ve reached a hopefully temporary equilibrium point where corporate interests and ability to extract value vs user interests (and their lack of ability or interest in fighting for them) result in users hating life consistently’ isn’t any more explanatory I think, but says pretty much the same thing.

Users are relatively helpless/uneducated/captured and uncoordinated here at the moment, and the business interests are getting less pleasant as they fight each other in the absence of any other guidance/regulation as they try to grow and extract the maximum value they can.

At some point something with change and we’ll start shifting to another equilibrium point. Based on past experience I doubt it will be much friendlier to end users, but I have been surprised once or twice before.

And this isn’t (near as I can tell), ‘corporations bad’. Everyone always tries to get the maximum value they can get out of a system barring energy expended/concern about social judgement/blowback concerns.

From kids downloading warez to someone looking for maximum stimulation/emotional load from browsing instagram for free to a company getting the extra couple dollars from improving a signup flow.

Or because they have no other choice. It's mind-boggling that the very people responsible for creating this landscape have the audacity to throw up their hands and try to absolve themselves of responsibility for the things they built by saying "idk the users just love being screwed". We must do better.

> We must do better.

Meaning what? Name-and-shame clearly won't do the job. The only solution I can see is for there to be laws against dark patterns. The profit incentive for user-hostile design isn't going to go away.

I would absolutely support stronger regulation. Unfortunately, I don't believe the Overton window will be there in the United States for some time.

> It is just a fact of life that a sizeable portion of users "accept" dark patterns, and PMs consider that as a sign of success.

How many people installed a browser addon that just agrees to the GDPR popup just so they don't have to click on deny?

The whole point of dark patterns is the users don’t accept them , but are misled by them. That is what dark patterns are.

Don't know if you're agreeing or disagreeing, but: this is why I said "accept" in quotes.

The root of the issue is they never complain, even when cornered into a shitty bank or govt app. Everything else just grows from this fact. They are used to commercials, spam, telemarketers, scammers, pre-checked boxes when the law allows to uncheck it and demand the same service. There is no revolt.

If you don’t take responsibility for change, it doesn’t happen.

Complain how? In older times we could just mail the company now the support page has stupid chat bots that do nothing, and you have to fight with it or the damn page for 5 mins before you can send a mail. Most of the times I just give up. And if we complain for every site takes too much time. And it will boil down to "sure sir, but thata how it is"

> Her extended family are all on Facebook, her grandkids are posting pics of the great grandkids on Facebook. Yeah, she deserves the disaster that is Facebook.

We use WhatsApp groups for this now. It’s perfect, no ads, only the content from people I want content from. No slimy Facebook algorithm. Between tiktok Instagram and whatsapp how is Facebook.com even still a thing?

Yet, Whatsapp belongs to Facebook... And I won't hinge my bets on it staying better for the long run given the shittiness of the original product in so many ways.