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Comment by calbear81 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not convinced that the Feedly option is as much of a dark pattern as you might think. There are a few ways this could be addressed which would come with their own tradeoffs: 1) Remove the "x" close button since you're not a Pro user therefore setting clear expectations that you have no ability to dismiss an ad. This is clean but then the user wouldn't have known that they COULD pay to close the ad. 2) Change the "x" close button to something like "How do I remove ads?" or "Upgrade to Pro to close" - this would set expectations clearly upfront but for many users who don't mind seeing the ads this is additional information/noise.

The current experience optimizes for delivering information only when there's strong intent. The intent is derived when the behavior has been expressed by the user in the form of "I dont' want to see this ad" and then the information is delivered to explain "Here's how you can complete this action".

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There are enough alternative symbols that aren't obviously misleading. For example nowadays we often get the ellipsis as button symbol for "do something with this element". But this? This is doing exactly what shady "you're the 100,000th visitor, you get a free iPhone" online ads have been doing by punching you in the face as reward for clicking on the X button.

Just use an ad blocker. Ads aren't worth a click each to get rid of.

> for many users who don't mind seeing the ads this is additional information/noise.

Ads are additional noise, so those users wouldn't mind it.

Feels like you’re just easily triggered by it for some reason and making up arguments. Assuming not the first time on the internet, are you really surprised by x button on ads not doing it right away? Three dots are usually used to modify/report the ads tile. Their x button is crystal clear here, you’re just dissatisfied with the results.

This is doing exactly what shady "you're the 100,000th visitor, you get a free iPhone" online ads have been doing

How is that even related?

by punching you in the face as reward for clicking on the X button

“They literally attacked me by asking for a payment for an obviously extra option”

Ads aren't worth a click each to get rid of.

Pretty sure that once you pay, all ads go away, not only the ones you clicked x on.

I can’t agree on anything here except for using an adblocker. It’s the best “augmentation” software humanity ever invented.

Another option would be to replace the X with a small (i) symbol or similar, so at least users won't be confused when it doesn't do what they expected.

> I'm not convinced that the Feedly option is as much of a dark pattern as you might think.

I'm not convinced any of the article's examples are dark patterns. They're annoying, but I thought dark patterns require more.

There needs to be some deception and a stronger consequence than a bad popup. Accidentally signing up for a mailing or buying something unintended, for example.

There needs to be some deception and a stronger consequence than a bad popup. Accidentally signing up for a mailing or buying something unintended, for example.

Or the classic one: anyone can sign up for an account and subscribe to the service but to cancel you need to call and speak to a retention specialist over the phone.

> There needs to be some deception and a stronger consequence than a bad popup. Accidentally signing up for a mailing or buying something unintended, for example.

To the contrary, I think that intent to inconvenience people who don't make the choices the website wants but doesn't need the user to make can be enough to make a UX pattern a dark pattern in most cases. There's no need for a strong consequence, and there's no need for users to actually fall for the deception. There doesn't even need to be a deception to fall for.

Suppose that I shop online. I add an item to the cart. Then I decide that I don't want the item anymore, so under a minute later I go to the cart and click the cancel button. Fully transparently, the website tells me that I need to wait 1 minute after clicking "add to cart" in order to remove the item. The website always does this for items in the cart, but doesn't present the waiting as a feature of the service. It's not as if having multiple items in my cart means that I have to pay for all items vs. none at all; I can select which items in the cart to buy at any given time, so there isn't any strong consequence. But making me wait to permanently remove the item from my shopping cart is a dark pattern by default. (There are ways to make it not a dark pattern, such as transparently making the advertised gimmick of the online store "You need to wait 1 minute to remove items from the cart. Shop slowly and responsibly!". Wordle uses what would normally be a dark pattern - making people wait to play a game which needs no waiting - and turns it into a core advertised feature, a core charm point.)

IT would be much better to put a '?' icon in its place rather than 'x'. You're abusing user expectations. It's a dark pattern when that happens. Trade off or not, a dark pattern is a pattern that tricks user into acting against their own interests or desires.

for me current version isn't bad, but if I would have to improve it, I would add little "pro" somewhere in background of the X

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