YSK : Dark patterns among large companies are becoming more mainstream
While it is no secret that exploitative practices are interlaced with capitalistic tendencies, the practices are becoming intolerable. Signing up to pay usually takes only two clicks that are prominently visible whereas cancelation options are hidden away in deep settings requiring multiple clicks. Pricing often feel arbitrary with no reference points. Every large company grows with the intention of exhibiting monopolistic behavior. This is not sustainable and should not be tolerated.
But at a certain point, it's still a cop out. And part of the trick. If you drown anyone in enough bullshit, you can't expect it to all get called out -- but that doesn't mean it's not all bullshit. It is divide and conquer in another form.
I short of have a theory with this. There's this belief that "netflix killed piracy" because they provided an actual service with a fair price and the commodity that people wanted to watch shows. And that later on, it got enshittified. But I kinda think that, collaterally, a very important factor that explains people not even knowing how to download a torrent or having 0 critical mind when it comes to the other companies abusing their power has been the surge of smartphones
They were designed to have idiot-proof protection, but more and more they distanced newer generations from having a minimal technical background on how to use computers, which then leads to a more ignorant society incapable of saying no to such companies
I'm not saying this has been the main factor but I have my suspicions to believe it might be related
This is such a good observation. We all assumed the "digital natives" generation was going to be able to just be hacker-level familiar with technology. And for those who grew up with just PCs, it's probably true. But the "smartphone native" generation followed so quickly it changed the learning patterns. They understand tech generally and specific apps, but get lost with troubleshooting general problems because computers became appliances.
Scary to think but...Are the same young people who a decade ago were tech support for their parents and grandparents going to have to also do it for their adult children and grandchildren?
That's because your perspective is quite skewed if you think about it.
To many many people, being at a level where issues such as "dark patterns in muh apps" is a big thing that might annoy them in their life would be absolute heaven. That means all their big issues are long solved and they got the mental and physical capability spare to worry about such, comparatively menial, issues.
If your health is struggling, whether to accept cookies or not (at least digital ones) is really the least of your worries. Especially given that the vast vast majority wouldn't know what it means either way, or even why it is a thing that anybody would ever care about. It's like how you don't care, until reading this sentence now, which parts of the print of a grocery product packaging inks are biodegradable and which are not and hence whether you should throw that empty cardboard box on your compost heap or actually shouldn't do that.
This video by Mrwhosetheboss argues that big tech companies are prioritizing profits over users. The video uses the term "in ification" to describe a three-stage pattern that many tech companies follow. In the first stage, the company offers a superior service at a lower price to gain users. Once they have a large user base, the company focuses on increasing profits from those users by employing tactics like tiering and subscriptions. Finally, the company may reduce the quality of the service while still charging more.
The video uses Uber as an example. Initially, Uber was significantly cheaper and more convenient than taxis. Uber was able to attract a large user base by offering low prices and a better user experience. Once Uber had a dominant market share, they introduced surge pricing and began to take a larger cut of each fare.
The video also criticizes the proliferation of subscription services. The video argues that many companies are offering subscription services for features that were previously free or included in a lower-priced subscription. The video says that this can be a bad deal for consumers, especially when they have to subscribe to multiple services to access all the content they want.
Overall, the video argues that big tech companies are becoming less user-friendly and more focused on extracting money from their users. The video concludes with a call to action, urging viewers to be more critical of subscription services and to cancel them when they are not being used.
Exploitative patterns like those idiotic youtube thumbnails the creators are using to draw extra attention to emotions not actually present in the video?
Or making half hour videos for all of 14 sentences of actual content, to stretch the ad-income as much as they can.
Yeah, that. Wish I could give a video -1 view instead of +1 after clicking onto it. Fuck youtubers such as this one, they're part of the problem and don't get to have a say in what we should or should not try to care about.
Plus it's always a video, but never actually uses the medium. It's just shots of the host talking to the camera. Very very rarely showing clips or screenshots that could even better be embedded in an article.
Can you do a lot with a video, if done well and for the right subject? Of course, and for those it'd absolutely be the correct choice. But people like the guy linked in the OP are neither capable of nor interested in doing that, as it's just a business to them. It increases income, so long youtube videos it is. That's one big takeaway anyways: Content creators talk about this shit not because they care, but because it gives them money. It's a business, not a passion.
Install Blocktube or another extension that stops videos from starting when you open the link, and read the transcript. It used to be at the top, just under the video itself, but now they've moved it to the bottom of the video description so you have to go through all the affiliate links just to get to the fucking transcript button.
But once you've found it, transcriptions are your best friend: skim it to see if there's any real reason to watch (usually not) and enjoy that portion of your life that you just saved for things that YOU want and not what Google and that content creator want. The transcript will also tell you what portion of the video you need to watch, if actually watching it suits your needs.
I also regularly speed up videos; 1.25 is great under most circumstances, 1.5 if they're really trying to draaaag shit out. You can always slow it down again, but it's great for getting through the fluff if you need to hear it all (like repair videos for something you've never done yourself).
The "best" you could do in this case is use ad blockers, don't use an account and never interact. Even a negative interaction counts. It's all "engagement," even if negative.
I installed a Channel Blocker and got into the practice of opening unknown videos in Private Windows. For some fucking reason, YT seems to think I want to hear about people complaining about being suppressed by the algorithm. I would leave nasty comments for those videos if not for the fact that, like you said, any interaction counts as "engagement".
People feel the need to monetize everything in their lives just to survive (not thrive). Consider directing your anger towards those who have purchased our government from us. Rather then being mad at the digital equivalent of a dude on a highway offramp holding a cardboard sign and begging for living expenses.
Who the fuck would rather repeatedly pause and in pause a fucking video, skim past bullshit, skip ads, or hell even USE YouTube over a block of text somewhere that c9ntains the info you were looking for.
People watch this dog.shit. is it because its.the only.place you can find info anymore? Or do people actually LIKE this format?
seriously. "I want to learn about resistors!" doesn't send me to a nice pretty static graphic I can reference, or a text explanation of the meaning, its some shit head (honestly probabpy a pretyy cool if somewhat anodyne engineering nerd) talking for 20 minutes with an seo title and like 2/10 of the pieces of information I needed in a totally unsearchable format.
and that last bit might be the important part; its not manually user searchable. this matters, and I think its what the companies want, why they love video. it gives them more control.
Why do I have to tell my computer several time per week that I do not wish to let the X box app make changes to my computer?? I've never had anything to do with an X box. Oh, now you're going to make my computer unusably slow unless I update and.. what's that.. ? I can't fucking update unless I ALLOW X BOX APP TO MAKE CHANGES TO MY COMPUTER??? Fuck you windows 11.
Freaking Ironic using a VPN as a sponsorship for this video... VPN landscape is literary riddled with Dark Patterns. Surfshark are also guilty of applying these.
Those sponsored ads just tell me to avoid those companies. I'm not from the US, so some stuff goes right over my head (food delivery, clothing), but anything tech related (VPNs, browsers, password managers, etc.) I'll just gonna double down to never use or look into those companies.
Most of the VPN ads simply lie as well. "Get more Netflix" except Netflix blocks most popular VPNs extremely quickly. "Be anonymous online" means "we can see all your activity." Etc.
I had one subscription where cancellation was not only buried in a bunker somewhere in the deepest pits of their website, but once you found the magical incantation to get through it the next step was to send them an email requesting a cancellation.
I don't normally care about naming & shaming - like the other person said, they're all like this so the name shouldn't matter - but this one was surprising to be honest. It was Bellesa Plus. The thing is, they're like a progressive porn site, very much branded as one of those feminist porn sites that respects the autonomy of the performers and so on. They just don't seem to care very much about the consent of their customers.
one time i had to call a company during regular 9-5 business hours to cancel a subscription after starting a free trial.
that experience was so horrible ive since sworn off free trials altogether. nowadays, if i need a free trial to use an app or website for a couple days, then i will simply not use that app or website.
It took me a long time to cancel but I finally did because I'd been skipping for every month over the course of maybe two years. I had found out that the classic plan doesn't even have an advantage anymore, so there was no point in me maintaining that.
Luckily the payment method I had used has expired so every month they remind me to skip the month if I missed doing it. They call it something different but I know what they really mean ʘ‿ʘ
Are you complaining because the video was posted here or because it was made in the first place? Maybe this community doesn't need it, but there are a lot of people out there with not much awareness of what's happening in this realm.
Free money has dried up, so competition is drying up a bit too. And without free money, the big guys are feeling some squeeze and now want to extract the rent they always planned to eventually extract.
Yes. This is pretty fucking apparent but again, cant do shit about it because corps have paid off our politicians and we can do fuck all about it because we have no way to properly revolt lest we all risk bankruptcy and lose everything.
Have you considered starting a electoral reform campaign in your state? We can change how we vote one state at a time so we don't need federal reform. Look up a video on First Past the Post voting for more information on the spoiler effect and how it makes two political parties a mathematical inevitability.
Has anyone here noticed how it's almost impossible to watch a TikTok on mobile if you don't have an account or the app? My friend sends me links and I click it but the website opens playing it muted and it only plays the TikTok one time, no repeating. Then it prompts me to install the app. If I say I don't want to the unmute button disappears and I'm unable to play the TikTok again with sound. The only way to do it is to refresh which just prompts me to download the app again after being played the TikTok one time with no sound. Aggravating as all hell.
I've been searching for a solution to this exact problem. My partner sends links occasionally and I always ignore because of how the web interface is blatantly hostile. Tried routing the links through MPV on android but no dice.
I was pushed upselling offers no fewer than ten times over the two evenings I spent in their service prepping my taxes last week. It was infuriating. I'm going to try the IRS's pilot program next year assuming it's still available for the 2024 tax season.
Jio Telecom here provides WiFi in my area which we can use to place call through our phones without data pack, but man the permissions that app asks are illogical.
To be fair proper integration of an aftermarket VoIP app requires almost every permission a phone has, especially if the app wants to mirror your caller ID, and supports SMS and attaching various media.
What does the fact that it was expensive original have to do with it? He used to pay 120 and now it’s over 350. Those are two entirely different levels of expensive.
This would require the possibility of competition, which is generally forbidden widely due to lobbying, the consequential weakening of antitrust laws, and the follow-on massive consolidation on a scale that history has never seen before.
Maybe in theory but not in 2024. You’re only allowed to compete until you moon a giant, then you’re screwed.
this reminds me of what happened to the instagram cofounders when zuckerberg asked to buy their company:
Systrom [cofounder] said he feared turning down an acquisition offer from Facebook would send Zuckerberg into "destroy mode" — a concern that Cohler [early investor] affirmed.
I moved to a smaller company for certain services. Now that small company gets bought up by a big company and the services are discontinued. Back to big tech it is.