Dark UX patterns are bad for your business
letstalkdesign.co
letstalkdesign.co
Well, that's an opinion... maybe they’re actually converting x2 times more...
http://planscope.io/blog/why-im-going-back-to-capturing-cred...
I guess until you A/B test it you never know! Requiring credit card upfront is not a "Dark Pattern", it's a business decision, and a very effective measure for abuse prevention (among many other things).
Maybe it doesn't work for all the businesses, but for others (like Amazon with its Free Tier or the above example) it looks like works wonders!
The golden rule for anyone building or selling something.
I can think of a good few "businesses" that made millions by stiffing their customers in dark pattern ways.
For example - you can bury the fact that a one-off payment is really a monthly subscription in the legal T&Cs.
There are online forums devoted to helping dishonest people do this - often by marketing some craptastic info-product, and then creating a sales funnel that tries to find the most gullible customers and upsells further subscriptions and services to them.
Unfortunately dishonesty, greed, and customer exploitation are capitalist virtues - or at least considered more than excusable if there's profit to be made.
It's not an individual problem so much as a question of collective ethics.
So don't expect dark patterns to disappear because they're immoral: some people are just fine with that.
As if over the web you could fool human beings and get out without being noticed.
In my mind, it's an extension of the anonymity principle: if you don't think someone knows who you are, you're more willing to be an asshole.
It's also part of the being really rude on the Internet behind the anonimity that we have.