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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.

nom_nom_nom_9999 ,

So, this is the way to get make the most of your investment

FunnyUsername ,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

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.

realitista ,

Not if you just ignore the link

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

I hate tik tok but I also have actual friends and I am not gonna be a dick to them about what link they sent me

ERPAdvocate ,

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.

If anyone has a solution please share.

hiramfromthechi ,
@hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world avatar

See my comment above

hiramfromthechi , (edited )
@hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world avatar

Most of my friends know better than to send me TikTok links. But for the few who still do, I use this open source frontend called ProxiTok.

To get TikTok links to redirect automatically on click, use the LibRedirect extension.

LWD ,

How long until that sort of thing goes the way of Bibliogram/Barinsta?

hiramfromthechi ,
@hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world avatar

Only time will tell.

I know this one also went down recently for Instagram: proxigram.privacyfrontends.repl.co

But I’m not sure if it was an Instagram change that did it, or Replit took it down or what.

FunnyUsername ,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

This all seems a little advanced for me. Is there a way to do this on phones?

hiramfromthechi ,
@hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t worry, it’s not complicated at all. A little inconvenient maybe, but that’s always the trade-off when it comes to privacy and security.

Here are the two most convenient ways that I can think of on each OS.

iOS: Bookmark the frontend URL. When you get sent a link, pop open the page and paste the TikTok URL.

Android: Get Firefox and set it as your default browser. Install the LibRedirect add-on (browser extension). Whenever you get sent a URL, just tap it and it’ll automatically get redirected to the privacy-friendly frontend.

postmateDumbass ,

Corporations were allowed to incorporate in the public’s best interest. If they are no longer operating as such they should be dissolved.

SoonaPaana OP ,

This should be the top comment. Corporations should not be allowed to play the game of ‘let’s see how long we can get away with this’.

intensely_human ,

You should know: if you haven’t noticed dark patterns becoming more prominent, it’s time to get your eyes checked.

Shou ,

Noticed it years ago. Different colours for buttons. Harder to read. All that garbage.

JimboDHimbo ,

That’s not even what pisses me off the most about the whole situation. I’m upset that my friends and family don’t care.

asteriskeverything ,

gestures to everything else I mean… we are fucking drowning in situations to care about.

JimboDHimbo ,

…fuckkkk. that’s fair.

asteriskeverything ,

…and then your friend and family don’t care about those either 🙃

5too ,

I do think some of this is just fatigue. The usual way to deal with this is to either pick one or a few things to try to actively address, or just buckle down and wait for things to improve. Both lead naturally to a situation where it’s hard to get a critical mass of people to respond on any one subject.

circuitfarmer ,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

How so? You can’t work on everything at the same time. And the more immediate and direct an issue is, the more it needs your direct focus.

Meaning that issues such as dark patterns in cookie signups are automatically lowest-tier-ever-for-once-I-got-fuck-all-left-to-worry-about.

Ultragigagigantic ,
@Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world avatar

There is no war other then class war. It all ties back into our way of life. People don’t like to think about it because it’s such a huge cultural and political shift to fix it, that they can more easily imagine a post apocalyptic future. Rather then a future where you and your children aren’t exploited from cradle to grave.

SomeGuy69 ,

Covid has shown the world that we can drown the world in bullshit. Before that, people used to care more and companies had a name to lose, now there’s just apathy and greed left.

Blackmist ,

And I’ve stopped caring about nearly all of them.

Not really much I can do about it, so why worry?

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

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.

egeres ,
@egeres@lemmy.world avatar

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

JimboDHimbo ,

I would have to agree. Dumb shit like “brand loyalty” probably comes into play as well.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein , (edited )

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?

braxy29 ,

the bad news is that, despite growing up with pc’s and having had some level of troubleshooting skill as a result, i have forgotten most of it in the last 10 years as computing/tech has become pushy and handholdy. i suspect this is not uncommon.

edit - but i still miss xp. 😔

Ilovemyirishtemper ,

I am running into this problem at work all the time! I am a Millennial who does corporate training for new recruits in a field that we will almost completely train you on. I.e. you don’t have to have a specific degree or certification because we’ll train you on the job.

I have found that almost all of the Gen Z hires don’t have more than a basic level of computer literacy. They didn’t learn the hard way in middle school that if you don’t save your essay, it will be deleted. They had auto-save. They don’t how to ctrl+alt+delete to get to their task manager to force shut down a frozen program because they (often) used chromebooks or phones/tablets where it was basically an internet machine that could be restarted if need be, but didn’t have more involved software. They have never had to troubleshoot issues with burning data onto a CD (archaic, I know, but our job requires it). They don’t know how to format a lot of things in Word because Google docs does a lot of it for you (or doesn’t even have the option). Hell, they don’t always know what a proper address on a letter looks like because they don’t send snail mail - although this only relates to tech in the formatting and printing of letters.

So now I’m training them on the new material they have to learn for the job, but also computer intricacies that I learned in middle school on my Gateway computer with like 1 gig of ram and floppy disks. When you needed to format something perfectly for school, but nothing was user friendly, you had to learn a lot of weird tricks and workarounds.

They are generally still better at using the computer than Gen X or Boomers, but the Millenials get computers on a different level because we grew with the tech. Gen Z can pick up new software quicker, but still don’t always get how things actually work.

I also thought that as true digital natives, they would know a lot more than they actually do. I agree with the likelihood that we will more than likely have to translate for our elders and the younger generation as well.

capital ,

It’s definitely a thing.

theverge.com/…/students-file-folder-directory-str…

Ilovemyirishtemper ,

Yes! Exactly this!

Carighan , (edited )
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

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.

random8847 ,

100% agree. I’ve found mrwhostheboss channel to be the worst when it comes to clickbait.

Ultragigagigantic ,
@Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world avatar

Youtube face.

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.

AnUnusualRelic ,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

If it isn’t a text file which I can read in 1/10th of the time it would take me to watch a stupid video (if not less), I’m just not bothering.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

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.

AnUnusualRelic ,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

Making a proper video takes a lot of time. Just recording yourself reading a text while taking cool poses, not so much.

ChunkMcHorkle ,
@ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world avatar

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).

Socsa ,

This is how the internet used to be and it was wonderful.

Misk ,

Lynx Master Race, Rise!

Asafum ,

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.

Duamerthrax ,

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”.

Fungah ,

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?

melpomenesclevage , (edited )

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.

melpomenesclevage ,

if you didn’t steal it, you dont own it. fuck these companies.

until more people take that attitude; problem only gets worse.

duffman ,

ADA lawsuits can fix that.

pop ,

We don’t need a shitty youtuber to tell us what we’ve known for years?

metallic_substance ,

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.

EncryptKeeper ,

It’s actually a really well made and comprehensive video that will undoubtedly be a wake up call to lots of people.

parpol ,

Mr.Happy Sunshine over here

Hiro8811 ,

It’s for the majority of people that didn’t woke up yet

spiderman ,

Arun knows his stuff.

Delusion6903 ,

Speaking of dark patterns, anyone use TurboTax lately?

Stoney_Logica1 ,

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.

talentedkiwi ,

I’ve used freetaxusa the last couple of years. If the IRS one isn’t available, then I’d recommend them.

ElusiveClarity ,

Same. It’s simple and straightforward and I think it only asked me if I wanted to pay for their extra service 1 time. I’m not sure if it’s income based but it didn’t cost us anything to do a federal return.

Delusion6903 ,

But does it do state too?

servermonky ,

Yes, but state costs like $20 or something instead of free

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

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.

mesamunefire ,

You can’t cancel T-Mobile on their site, they require you to call. Even then I got no email verification nor letter about the cancellation. Cool…

metallic_substance ,

What’s the company?

Socsa ,

Every single porn site.

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

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.

affiliate ,

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.

Sunny ,

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.

UckyBon ,

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.

Sunny ,

Usually the best way to go about things!

Socsa ,

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.

Blackmist ,

Skipping a month of Humble Choice is an exercise in gotchas. Sometimes the blue button, sometimes not, about 5 confirmation screens to skip through.

I don’t know why I’m still subbed in all honestly.

orb360 ,

Sounds like you’re just terrible at gotchas

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Blackmist ,

I should do the same, tbh.

Most of the higher profile games either get given away on Epic a few months later, or are already included in PSPlus.

Barely have time to play them anyway.

Wolfwood1 ,

Same here.

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

Souyo ,

Can we name, shame and review bomb companies that do this?

Aquila ,

What companies don’t do this?

elbarto777 ,

The gas companies. Don’t want to buy gas anymore? Don’t go to the gas station. No contract needed.

Routhinator ,
@Routhinator@startrek.website avatar

I mean, gas is the original surge pricing commodity, they have had dark patterns in their pricing long before other companies.

Mirshe ,

Considering the main oil companies LITERALLY engage in price fixing, openly.

elbarto777 ,

Oh.

EncryptKeeper ,

It’d be easier to list the companies that don’t.

balder1991 ,

This is actually good. There’s finally more room for good services offered by smaller companies that care about users.

TheRealCharlesEames ,

Bless your heart

henfredemars ,

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.

Hugh_Jeggs ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    EncryptKeeper ,

    Antitrust laws and lobbying exist in many countries. You know there are more countries than just the U.S., right?

    henfredemars ,

    There’s this thing called multinational corporations that transcend the boundaries of a country. It varies, but this is a global problem. See issues like housing and the cost of food.

    affiliate ,

    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.

    (source)

    this stuff came up in a court hearing, and then nothing happened about it

    henfredemars ,

    They have nothing to fear, no need to compete. They simply dominate and extract rent.

    metallic_substance ,

    How’s the weather in the reality you live in?

    SlopppyEngineer ,

    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.

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