u/bogdanelcs

Asking for a friend, but also asking seriously.

Pre-checked boxes, fake urgency timers, double-negative opt-outs, six-step cancellations. At some point most of us have been in a meeting where someone said "can we make the decline option less prominent" and just... went along with it.

I think we don't talk about it enough.

Some numbers from the article to save you a click:

• 76% of subscription sites use at least one dark pattern. 67% use multiple. (FTC/ICPEN, 2024, 642 sites reviewed across 26 countries)
• 40% of e-commerce countdown timers are fake. When the clock hits zero, the offer just continues. (Princeton, Mathur et al.)
• Removing the opt-out button from a cookie banner raised consent rates by 20+ percentage points. One button. Gone.
• Amazon's cancellation flow was internally called "Iliad." Six clicks to cancel, one to subscribe. They just paid $2.5B for it.
• 43% of users stopped buying from a retailer entirely after experiencing a dark pattern. (Dovetail, 2023) - this one should be passed on to the clients pushing for dark patterns