Ask HN: Should we regulate first party ads? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should we regulate first party ads?

6 pointsfigassis6 comments

Maybe you’ve experienced this before. You use an app or service, like Uber, and you already spend money on it, they make millions on fees so it’s not free. But it really wants to pull more money off of you and creates these add ons, like “Uber One”, a subscription that gives you discounts or whatever. So it pops up in every single interaction you have with the app. Literally on open, on checkout, on browsing, 100% of the experience is you actively declining this nag. And it’s also subtle. On checkout it pops up as if it were the actual checkout form, so you have to always be on the lookout for the trap.

It actively makes a necessary product worse, and they know you won’t just delete the app because you need it. Maybe you’re traveling and need transportation, or food, etc.

So they made a deliberate choice not to respect your choice, and I’m not sure why this is allowed.

Uber is probably the worst offender, I revoked its notification privileges years ago because you can’t turn off ads and keep order notifications. So I killed both and prefer just watching the app or getting a call from deliveries.

It’s a very real power imbalance from a provider that already takes your money. Does anyone know of any efforts to regulate this anywhere? I really would love to donate to it. I would give a lot more that the Uber One subscription to it.

This reminds me of 'friendzone' discussions - "if this guy keeps asking to date you when you've made it clear you're not interested, why talk to him at all?" -"Because he does all kinds of things for me that would be inconvenient to get elsewhere!"

I feel like there's a third way between 'regulate it' and 'stop using it'. Give the guy a reality check maybe. I heard the term 'make refusal legible rather than silent' and I think that applies to the situation very well, if Uber saw a more profitable - and less annoying - use of that space I'm sure they'd switch. Then again, I am working on an app that would do something like that so I'm probably biased towards seeing every problem with a matching shape.

> they know you won’t just delete the app because you need it.

I'd 100% delete it. All the apps I've ever seen and used are for convenience. I don't actually need any of them.

Just don't use it if you don't like it.

Why do you need it so bad?

You can still have food delivered without an app, and get rides.

Sure, the app would be worth zero dollars, but it's not worth zero dollars, and it's not because people just enjoy having a random app in their phone is it? If I deleted it, it would still be worth millions, because a non zero number of people probably find it useful or necessary.

So is your solution really a solution? I guess we should just abolish all kinds of regulation, not even talk about it. Just choose not to interact with the thing. Don't regulate credit card fees, just use cash. Don't regulate car emissions, just get a bicycle. We just fixed the world you and me.

Yeah but it's just a luxury service and you can do all the same things cheaper without any app at all?

I'm fine with regulation, but specifically services are kinda self regulating. Do you not agree?

I can get behind regulating the monetization of public data for private gain. That's completely out of hand.

You are saying "let's regulate the things I think should be regulated, but not the things others think" because other people's problems, specifically because you do not value them, aren't worth solving.

Cars are a luxury, credit cards are a luxury, smart phones are a luxury, internet is a luxury. Clean, drinkable tap water is a luxury, you can just filter, boil your water or add a few drops of disinfectant.

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