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Comment by matho | Hacker News Reader

There's a dichotomy here on HN: Best marketing practice generally praises upselling and A/B testing conversions to increase sales and profits.

But, taking these to a natural conclusion typically results in exactly the Dark Patterns we see here: where users are tricked or misled into agreeing to things they might not if they were offered clear, open and full disclosure upfront.

We can identify dark patterns - but in many cases, these are here because they work. At least, large international businesses such as RyanAir believe that they have a positive outcome which overwhelms any damage to the brand.

I would like to know: how can we resolve these two ideas and run ethical but viable/competitive businesses?

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> I would like to know: how can we resolve these two ideas and run ethical but viable/competitive businesses?

All other things being equal, you can't. If there are dark patterns that empirically do increase competitiveness in the market of interest at the cost of violating things you hold to be ethical principles, you aren't going to be competitive without employing them unless you have some other non-duplicated market-relevant advantage that compensates for the disadvantage of ethics, unless you can change the market context to eliminate the effectiveness of the dark patterns.

I think you're right here, but the qualifier "all things being equal" can't be taken lightly. Rarely if never are "all things equal." I also don't think a shift in the market context is necessary. We already have a market place where people who feel tricked or duped will have a lower opinion of the company doing the duping. dark patterns have a bad edge to them too--very few of them, when noticed by the user, leave the user actually feeling good about how they were duped.

This kinda reminds me of the talk PG gave at 2008 start up school titled "Be Good." (http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7K0vRUKXKc) He outlines many ways why it's not merely ethically appropriate to be good, but also a strategically superior approach to running a startup. Ease of use, simplicity, trustworthiness--these are important qualities of a biz's reputation, both internally and in public perception. And Dark patterns tend to harm that reputation.

Edit: Addendum--obviously there are monopolies or monopoly-like situations where reputation isn't important.

> I also don't think a shift in the market context is necessary.

If the dark patterns empirically work, then a market context shift is necessary.

> We already have a market place where people who feel tricked or duped will have a lower opinion of the company doing the duping. dark patterns have a bad edge to them too--very few of them, when noticed by the user, leave the user actually feeling good about how they were duped.

If they had enough of a "bad edge" that they didn't actually work to increase the returns realized by a business--then they wouldn't be an issue, as there'd be no incentive to use them.

Sometimes the "bad edge" effect is cumulative over time. This can lead to a new entrant to the market suddenly gaining a lot of market share, because so many people have gotten fed up with the dominant player. So maybe the dark patterns work well, until suddenly they nose-dive, because everyone's switched to the less annoying alternative.

A/B testing only tells you what works today, not what's going to keep your customers satisfied in the long run.

1) Dark patterns do empirically work, that's the whole point.

2) Market won't magically shift - they work based on homo sapiens basic psychology, and that won't change so soon. However, dark patterns can (and are) reduced by making them illegal - effective consumer protection / truthful advertising laws can mitigate them. For example, if 'I agree' opt-out boxes are legally considered invalid, then it makes sense to use opt-in subscriptions; similarly for other [mis]representations.

Dark patterns confuse the user in to spending money, whether they want your product or not. A/B testing communicates the value of your product, and the customer wants to give you money.

A/B testing empirically measures the value of any technique to improve the value being optimized; if you the value you are optimizing for (based on what it is you are measuring in the A/B test) is not "effectively communicates the value of your product", but, e.g., "increases conversions", then dark patterns which optimize the value sought (increasing conversions) by "confusing the user into spending money" will be favored by A/B testing.

There is nothing intrinsically favoring honest communication or opposing dark patterns about A/B testing.

I would like to know: how can we resolve these two ideas and run ethical but viable/competitive businesses?

There is no way to "resolve" the fact that there are always ways to make money unethically, there are always people taking advantage of them, and if you are a human being you will always feel a twinge of regret and unfairness that you can't join in the fun.

Is that really a dichotomy? Tricking or misleading customers may increase conversions and upselling, but you don't need to do that to achieve that goal. Instead you can offer legitimate value and information that might help a customer make such a choice.

Airlines do offer legitimate value.

That doesn't stop them from adding dark patterns on top. Acting with business interests in mind, airlines are practically compelled to add dark patterns. Other airlines have moved towards RyanAir's model, not away from it.

I find that frightening, as an ethical person who wants to run a business.

RyanAir is not the dark pattern. The tricked-into-insurance aspect is.

Your comment was regarding conversions and upselling (purporting it as a dichotomy to do those yet deride dark patterns), yet neither of those ever need dark patterns -- if you have a compelling pitch that makes the customer knowingly and intentionally choose the option, you have legitimate business gains.

They add them because people most often choose the cheapest flight.

Lets say you have two airlines that both need to offer a flight for $300 in order to make a reasonable profit. If one shifts $15 of that cost to bag fees, then people will choose that one even though the end cost is the same. The other airlines have to follow suit or they will fail to stay competitive.

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