
Dark Patterns by the Boston Globe - apsec112
https://rationalconspiracy.com/2016/04/24/dark-patterns-by-the-boston-globe/
======
fblp
This kind of misleading pattern is illegal in Australia and from reading other
comments, probably the Europe.

In Australia the full price for a product has to be displayed equally or more
prominently than any other price. So that $6.93 has to be just as visible
other pricing claims (like $0.99 for 4 weeks).

The same law also requires companies to include tax prominently in their
pricing. More generally, a business cannot engage in misleading or deceptive
conduct.

The rationale behind this is it makes things fair for consumers, and helps
businesses compete fairly.

These laws probably don't exist in places like the US as businesses complain
about compliance costs, and the governments have other priorities.

~~~
jamescun
In the UK at least, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations of
2008 imply that it is an illegal sales technique. There has been some success
in courts prosecuting this to a degree that most subscription services will
also display the full price, less they become the example case.

~~~
pluma
In Germany the "fine print" price has to be clearly visible, too.

~~~
runholm
I suspect there are EU rules on the top of the chain forcing all member
countries to enforce such laws.

~~~
Silhouette
There are. In fact, they were strengthened significantly quite recently,
particularly in the area of online sales, and now with potentially quite
serious penalties for any business that doesn't comply.

If you're interested, the main underlying EU rules are in Directive
2011/83/EU.

------
brokentone
As the engineer being forced to implement patterns like this that I felt were
shady, I can almost promise you that some "growth hacker" or "subscriber
acquisition consultant" or "optimization consultant" comes in with case study
stats or runs an A/B tool to see various effects. They're likely able to show
several percent increase for each of these dark patterns, then management has
real dollars to have to turn down. Then I complain that we're violating trust
which can't be easily or immediately quantified, and the response is "eh, I
see the button, a user will find it if they want it."

After raising the flag too many times without being heard, I finally quit. But
is there a more scalable way to protest / stop this?

What about a browser extension that warns when you try to sign up for a
service that you can only cancel by phone?

~~~
gk1
There are bad people in every profession. Unfortunately marketing seems to
have a higher rate of them, and "growth hacking" is probably at 99%. Anyone
who concludes a test without sufficient information or consideration for side-
effects—or worse, makes a change without testing at all simply because some
other growth hacker claims it works—is just eager to claim another win without
care for actual business outcomes.

(I say this as a customer acquisition consultant.)

With that said, engineers are notoriously more sensitive to marketing and
sales than the general population, and therefore overestimate the negative
impact of a marketing or sales tactic.

(I say this as a former engineer.)

Case in point:

I once consulted for a popular NoSQL DB company. When I came along, they were
letting anyone download a trial of the DB without providing any contact
information—not even an email. So even as more and more people learned about
them, the sales team had no leads to sell to.

I set up a test in which a random 50% of people who clicked "Download" would
be prompted for their email before the download could start.

We _knew_ the download rates would drop, but that's a tradeoff the company was
willing to make to fill up its sales pipeline (and survive). After some
discussion and back-of-the-envelope math, we decided that anything less than a
60% drop would be worth it if it meant the sales team got leads.

The test ran for two months. The drop-off rate was just 30%, meaning 70% of
those who were prompted for an email went on to download. What's more, the
average usage frequency went _up_ for the test group. It turns out the email
form was mostly screening out the people with little interest in using the
product, who would've only looked at it once or twice and never return.

With all that said, dark patterns and "growth hackers" are a scourge that I
wish would go away.

~~~
wldcordeiro
When the goal of the profession (advertising/marketing) is to signal a brand
and influence you in ways to override your decision making skills it's no
wonder that deceptive patterns pop up.

~~~
gk1
That's a rather cynical way of looking at... any profession.

"The goal of the app development profession is to take money from phone
users."

"The goal of software engineering is to control users' computers."

And so on... Reductio ad absurdum. You can do this to any profession you
choose.

~~~
phantarch
Advertising/Marketing is unique in that it doesn't produce any byproducts.
It's conceivable, and often the case, that software is developed because it's
something useful and fun to do. The same is true for food, rockets, cars,
novels, etc. Advertising/Marketing though doesn't exist for any other reason
than to promote products and facilitate flow of money.

~~~
tamana
Marketing is education, and advertising is art, which is fun and useful. You
think people work at, say, McDonald's, because they like cooking?

------
youserious
There are an awful lot of comments on this expressing disgust and outrage for
the "dark patterns" employed by the Boston Globe to increase subscriptions and
revenue and my guess is that a hefty portion of the people expressing said
disgust and outrage are also using ad blockers.

Publishing is in a very uncomfortable place right now - at the bottom of this
comment I've attached a 2014 report from Adobe which, TL;DR, says that most
people are unwilling to pay for content online and also unwilling to see ads
online. This sort of behavior is forcing publishers to squeeze revenue of any
stone they can find.

I understand that this may not be a popular opinion here, but content doesn't
create itself, people do, and people need to make a living. Maybe before we
all start admonishing the Boston Globe (founded in 1872, btw) for making a
close button on a modal perhaps a tick too light, we should consider why these
practices are becoming more and more common place.

[http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/adblocking_goes_mainst...](http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/adblocking_goes_mainstream_2014_report.pdf)

~~~
samirm
No one asked them to publish anything online, that was their choice. Most
users don't want to pay for content because they're used to it being free on
the internet - after all, most content is. BG needs to come to terms with the
fact that some industries just die out and cannot always be profitable.

~~~
brettz
You're implying that people will produce quality news content for free? Or
that we will switch back to a paper based (or at least physical) product?

~~~
samirm
> _You 're implying that people will produce quality news content for free?_

Yes.

------
boomlinde
Why is this called "dark patterns"? It seems that it can be more accurately
described by calling it deliberately misleading or deceptive design. Clicking
the link I had no idea what it meant. Terminology like this makes sense when
the concept can't already be described using two words.

As for the content of the article, it has always seemed anti-user to me for a
website to prompt for a subscription 30 seconds into browsing a page. I wonder
if anyone has actually investigated the effect it has on traffic properly,
because I always go back whenever I get prompted to subscribe.

If someone had told me in 2005 that in the future, intrusive popups would work
its way back into the domains of acceptable design to the point where people
will gladly have them on their personal blogs I would have laughed in
disbelief. Together with "You have an outdated browser" ("Please view this in
Netscape 4.0"), "Rotate your device" ("Best viewed in 800x600") this is all a
terrible setback in acceptable practices.

Add to that some more recent design patterns like a "share on <social media>"
button taking up 1/5 of the screen estate following you through the page only
for the benefit of the publisher and the handful of users that also actively
use twitter, weird overloading of scrolling behavior, "Continue reading"
buttons... It's an awful mess and especially for websites that ideally would
just present plain written text with some pictures it seems like designers are
over-engineering their solutions for goals that in no way aligned with those
of the users.

~~~
forgottenpass
_Why is this called "dark patterns"?_

It is - for reasons that are a conversation unto themselves - uncouth to
suggest a business is acting in bad faith without airtight evidence of malice.
So the language gets softened.

It's doubly crazy when talking about the press. OP is picking a fight with
someone who buys ink by the barrel. For all the rah rah "speaking truth to
power" of the press, if you question the press you have to go hat-in-hand.

~~~
boomlinde
I don't think that is a valid concern in this case. From what I understand,
"dark patterns" is hardly an euphemism, and implies that the perpetrator of
"dark patterns" is acting in bad faith. The only reference to it that I can
find providing a definition
([http://darkpatterns.org](http://darkpatterns.org)) says that dark patterns
"are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of
human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind".

------
tjsnyder
I absolutely _hate_ the dark pattern of fully controlling your subscription
online, including changing it to a different service, but canceling requires a
phone call during very specific business hours where you are very likely to
forget.

It's disgusting and way too many companies are utilizing these tactics rather
than building a solid business model.

More companies that are doing this should be called out. Ive seen naturebox,
justfab and others just to name a few.

~~~
hvidgaard
I have been in that situation before. I send them an email stating I wanted to
cancel and I got the run of the mill "call this number". The reply proved that
they're reading it so I send a reply back that I was unable to call, that they
must forward the mail, and they're welcome to call me if they think it isn't
me that is canceling. Then I refused any future CC payments and that was the
end of it.

~~~
Silhouette
I certainly don't condone making it artificially difficult for people to
cancel, but there are several reasonable points against accepting some random
e-mail as cancellation. It's not authenticated or tamper-proof, for a start.
There's no proof of whether or when it was actually delivered. It probably
requires a real person to read and act on it, which may delay things like
cancelling any recurring payment process, possibly beyond the point where more
money has been spent.

For any subscription services I run, if someone mails us asking to cancel, we
normally direct them to the on-site cancellation process. This does use all
our normal security and log-in procedures, and is fully automated and can be
used in moments at any time.

However, if someone did not cancel that way (or in one of the other ways we
allow for in our terms) and just blocked their payment, we would be well
within our legal rights to take action to recover the money they owed us. In
practice we're only charging a small amount in these cases so we'd probably
just cancel their service when payment didn't go through, but there is no
guarantee any other business would make the same decision, so your strategy is
risky.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Ok, fair enough. Email is an unreliable form of cancellation for a number of
reasons. I don't necessarily buy it, but let's accept this for the sake of
argument.

But then how exactly is it more secure to accept a cancellation by Random Dude
on the phone?

Except to make the customer (especially international customers, which may
have to call in the middle of the night and who may incur significant charges)
jump through a whole lot of hoops and to make it as difficult as possible to
cancel.

To me this reeks like a shit ton of bad faith by the service provider, which
has nothing whatsoever to do with security.

~~~
Silhouette
_But then how exactly is it more secure to accept a cancellation by Random
Dude on the phone?_

I suppose if they had some sort of credentials set up for phone access then
that would be a point in its favour. My bank do have well established security
procedures for me to contact them by phone, for example.

To be clear, I am not in any way condoning requiring phone cancellation as a
technique for making it artificially difficult or frustrating for someone to
cancel when they are within their rights to do so. As you say, it stinks of
bad faith.

~~~
BlackFly
Call centers are in general quite atrocious as far as authentication goes.
Here is one particular egregious example
[http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/2016-reality-lazy-
authent...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/2016-reality-lazy-
authentication-still-the-norm/) I cannot remember where I read it, but there
are services in Eastern Europe where you can hire someone to field questions
at a call center. A calm detached criminal is going to be more convincing than
a flustered person who cannot believe that their identity is being questioned.

In general, there is nothing that you can ask me over a phone that cannot be
asked to someone pretending to be me who can get the details in a variety of
ways. To static questions there are static answers. If you perform two factor
authentication properly, this is actually easier over a website than the
phone.

------
marze
Wow, how many people want to pay $350/year for the Boston Globe? YOu can get
an cell phone data plan for that much that gives you the entire internet.

I can see why they are focusing on finding subscribers who think they are only
paying a fraction of that.

~~~
ghc
I do, happily. I subscribe to the Economist too. In the scheme of things
$350/year isn't much when you can spend that much in a weekend on gardening
supplies.

But the globe has also never charged my that much. They've been charging me
roughly $200/year for the last 3 years for a digital subscription.

------
mindslight
Whenever I get web overlay spam trying to get me to sign up for even more
spam, I run whois and enter their domain contact address.

~~~
elsurudo
What do you mean you "enter their domain contact address"?

~~~
elemenopy
They probably use the email address of the registrant of the domain name as
the sign-up address for their own website.

------
bartkappenburg
We can fix the cancellation problem by forcing that a signup and cancellation
must be symmetric by nature (ie. signing up online means that cancellation
should also be possible online).

------
k2enemy
In the United States, practices like this fall under the Federal Trade
Commission's authority. They offer guidance here:
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-
language/bu...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-
language/bus41-dot-com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf)

It looks like some of the Globe's practices are toeing the line. They probably
have a bunch of lawyers making sure they aren't crossing the line and are
obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit.

~~~
avs733
The immediate thought I had reading this was...if they canned the lawyers
would that end up being a larger cost savings then the revenue gained from
toeing the line?

------
surrealvortex
That's just sad. I guess I can understand the motivation, though that doesn't
justify anything. It's becoming very difficult to monetize online newspapers,
and they are forced to resort to such unethical practices to make ends meet.

Newspapers really have missed a trick or two in the transition to the
internet.

~~~
_Understated_
In the main, I agree: They got caught napping and didn't keep up so that's
their own fault.

That being said up until a few months ago, I didnt't read papers or watch the
news on TV since it's all stage-managed nonsense but I decided to take out a
FT weekend subscription after buying one on a whim one day.

I must say it was very enjoyable reading a newspaper with quality stories and
no fluff or click-bait titles and so on.

I don't consider tabloids to be anything other than literary fast-food for the
masses but I am thoroughly enjoying reading my FT on a Saturday and Sunday
morning with a cup of tea.

Oh, it's only about £10 a month too.

------
mrleiter
Thank you Austria (and Europe) for the tight Consumer Protection Act - makes
all this illegal.

------
parennoob
I wish expiring credit card numbers existed to kill this sort of online quasi-
scam (let's call it what it is).

I'd like to say, "$0.99 a week for 4 weeks? Cool, here's a temporary number
that expires in exactly one month. Please cut my subscription off after then."

Of course, I suspect that the benefit of the entrenched system in the US for
everyone but consumers will guarantee that this will be really difficult to
accomplish in reality.

~~~
kalleboo
> I wish expiring credit card numbers existed

Many banks actually offer exactly this feature. You set a dollar limit and an
expiry date. E.g. Bank of America ShopSafe:
[https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-
cards/shopsaf...](https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-
cards/shopsafe.go) My Swedish bank offers the same thing and even has an app
to generate card #s

~~~
zapt02
Which Swedish bank is that? My bank used to offer expiring VISA cards but
removem them claiming 3D Secure offers the same protection. (Obviously it does
not...)

~~~
kalleboo
Swedbank still support "e-kort" as they call them

------
mgalka
Would never have expected that from the Boston Globe. Can't imagine how the
step up in year two is even legal.

~~~
emmelaich
The web consultants and senior (non-journalist) execs will make money. The
Boston Globe itself will lose respectability. They're getting shafted too but
don't realise it.

~~~
TheLogothete
Ah, the good folks at meclabs and their CEO, doctor Flint, phd, who lies that
he has a phd.

------
aok1425
WSJ only allows cancellation by phone as well

~~~
karmelapple
Audible, although I'm unsure about cancellation, only allows setting your
account to "suspended" by phone.

I do this because I'm unable to keep up with one audiobook per month, but
still really enjoy their service.

Also, Rackspace email (paid hosting by email address) requires you to contact
customer service to delete email accounts you are not using. Not quite making
a phone, but still requires going through a "wait and communicate with a human
being" ten-minute process rather than a simple click to delete an account.

~~~
lfowles
> Audible, although I'm unsure about cancellation, only allows setting your
> account to "suspended" by phone.

I've been able to both put my account on hold and cancel several times
_online_ in the past 5 years.

------
on_
I think the descriptor is fairly accurate these are Dark, but not really
outright dishonest. They do a lot to funnel you in, which I think is
understandable but it was tougher to get past the huge red price that did say
billed today, but not what the increased price would be. That and the
cancellation.

When I was in my first year Econ 101 class I remember the professor telling a
story which IIRC was about SF Bus Companies. We were talking about price
elasticity and general market pricing mechanisms and doing price curves. The
story was essentially that the bus company brought in consultants who
evaluated why the company was losing money after it had raised rates. It was a
no-brainer of course, that if you sell 5,000 rides a day (made up number) that
if you raised prices from 1.00 to 1.10 you would make 10% more.

It turned out, that the company was doing rather poorly after raising rates
but critically, they were even priced too high at 1.00. 20,000 people would
ride the bus for $0.75 and have less impact on the marginal price as the
busses were heavily underused.

The point is that it is possible, I would say likely but I have no data, that
a subscription for the Boston Globe might attract 5,000 people at current
price(made up number), but like above if they charged $0.99 a month, they
could feasibly have 20000-200,000 customers in a biz with virtually 0 marginal
cost, and profit tied directly to subscriber size(ads which I assume they show
to even paying subscribers after reading the article).

Newspapers are super elastic, and that price curve probably falls steeply
after $1.00 a month.

~~~
surrealvortex
Not entirely sure, but don't credit card companies charge a considerable
minimum fee per transaction? I'm guessing the fee kicks in for each month.
That'd be a significant marginal cost.

Although a large organization like the Globe will be able to negotiate better
rates.

~~~
dingaling
> Although a large organization like the Globe will be able to negotiate
> better rates.

Or aggregate each customer's monthly payments into one larger charge, like
Google used to do for Play Store purchases. From memory they waited until
you'd reached something like $8 and then charged that in one transaction.

------
chinathrow
"But if they want to stop paying, they have to call and ask on the phone, no
doubt after a long hold time and mandatory sales pitches."

That should be illegal - accept the same channel for sales also for
cancellations.

------
davnn
When I last had to book a rental car and they did not show me the final price
on the order now page I cancelled and choose a different company. Completely
unacceptable.

------
GIFtheory
Intentional or not, I'm really annoyed by a similar thing in the NYT iPad app:
the ads are exactly where you naturally put your fingers to scroll.
Coincidence?

------
makecheck
Ah yes, another law with good intentions being exploited by loopholes.
Companies that “communicate” with their customers in this way are _so very
obviously trying to screw you over_ but hey, they “obeyed” the law and “told
you” the real price so it’s all good, right?

Also, this crap isn’t limited to web pages. Happens in the mail too. Yet these
remain “legal” because every one of them “tells you” exactly what they are: in
tiniest print, in the grayest of colors, in the unlikeliest of places and in
the most convoluted of words.

These laws have to be cleaned up. In the meantime I am perfectly fine with
publicly shaming companies that pull these tricks. We need a lot more articles
like this one.

------
strictnein
That signup for looks like the Star Tribune's (the main paper in Minnesota).
Similar pricing and everything.

Saw the Star Tribune doing some fun pricing stuff a month or so ago. Just try
and compare these prices:

[https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/943809_10154050270527...](https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/943809_10154050270527700_1369581928546511673_n.jpg)

\- Digital: First Month free, then $14.99 a month

\- Sunday+Digital: $13.90 for 10 weeks, then $4.54 per week, billed at $59.02
every 13 weeks

\- 7 Day+Digital: $39 for 13 weeks, then $7.05 per week, billed at $35.25
every 5 weeks

------
dredmorbius
Reader Mode in browsers is increasingly useful for this kind of crap.

I'll add that the flipside is that publushers need revenues. I'm aware
micropayments are making another go of it (David Brin is publishing an article
shortly which I reviewed in draft). My thought is that that's actually the
weong way to go and that what we need is superbundling, including possibly at
the government level (an income-indexed content tax). Some asskicking in
browser and web space to too shake out the cruft.

~~~
Cthulhu_
More and more websites block those though. I'm using some HN app on iphone a
lot, and for articles from the New York Times and such, all you get is a
summary and a 'read more' link, which gives you a page covered halfway with
the (obligatory EU) cookie thing (every time) and with a 'subscribe now'
banner.

~~~
dredmorbius
Firefox/Android with Self-Destructing Cookies -- not a problem.

I may have to manually add "about:reader?url=" to the head of the navigation
line. I'm taking to doing that by default.

A _small_ number of sites revert to the default page, but few. NY Times isn't
among them.

------
Ontheflyflyfly
"In the short term, these dishonest tricks raise revenue for newspapers that
use them. But in the longer term, they do even more damage, by giving the
whole industry a reputation for bad business practices. Cable companies can
get away with it because of government-granted monopolies; newspapers won’t be
able to."

------
Overtonwindow
This is a new concept for me, thank you, I've learned something. Most media
companies are going the way of shady advertisers, using BuzzFeed/deceptive
tactics. It's something that has really harmed the browsing experience, and
continues to give rise to ad blockers.

------
krisdol
Can someone explain clearly to me how an old publication like The New Yorker
continues to succeed in both print and online form without resorting to these
patterns, while an old publication like the Boston Globe _may_ be resorting to
these patterns because they're failing to achieve high success? Is it just
because The New Yorker has been very careful not to water down their brand?
Has it always just had innately more national reach?

The Boston Globe publishes some really good long-form investigative journalism
from time to time. Not always, but there are regularly some really good pieces
coming out of it.

~~~
acomjean
The Boston Globe used to be at Boston.com. They still own both now, but they
have different content. I guess bostonglobe is their more serious publication,
while boston.com is lighter. The strategy differentiating the two was
confusing and I think it really hurt the paper.

They also weren't doing a lot of local stuff until recently. They had a decent
local event listing calendar when the web was newer, but it fell by the
wayside and I never went back. Even with the "Boston Pheonix's" closure I
didn't go back.

I'm a local radio news listener, and Globe journalists are on the radio
talking about the articles they write. So they are getting the word out there.
They seem to be trying to get back into the local game.

------
blizkreeg
I'm no fan of this sort of trickery.

However, while I was watching the documentary 'Spotlight', which was The
Globe's 2002 expose on the Roman Catholic church, it occurred to me - How are
good newspapers to survive and turn a profit? Readers are unwilling to
pay/subscribe and online ad revenue is falling.

It's a genuine problem and I sure hope some of these newspapers survive and
are still around a decade from now. The WSJ, NYT, and WaPos will, but what
about some of the the others?

~~~
mgo
They need to find a business model that isn't based around outright deception
to survive. I have zero sympathy for them.

~~~
Cthulhu_
The problem with newspapers is that if they paywall all of their articles,
they won't get any viewers because nobody knows what kind of articles they
write without subscribing. A lot of them have an 'X free articles per month'
thing, but since I'm on three different machines, I've never hit that limit
unless it was like one or two a month.

~~~
alphapapa
Two solutions:

1\. Make certain articles freely available. They're not stupid--they can
figure out which ones will draw people in.

2\. Do it LWN-style: the current week's edition requires a subscription, after
that it's free. If it's well-written, people will pay to not be a week behind.

------
tlogan
In the brave new world, it nearly impossible to sell any kind of digital good
or services online to consumers (i.e., papers, email accounts, cloud storage,
etc.).

The only two things are selling relatively well online:

\- non-mobile games

\- subscription to porn site (friend of mine runs network and he claims that
it is a gold mine)

People do not want to pay for online service. People do not want to see ads.

I'm not sure how this is sustainable. We already see that cloud storage
providers stop offering ridiculous amount of storage for free.

------
stordoff
> It isn’t visible, but this page is yet another dark pattern, because even
> right before the purchase it never shows the real price

I don't agree with these practices, but the real price does appear to be on
that page. At the right hand side (where I suspect many people would overlook
it...), it says:

> At the end of your introductory period, continue on the weekly rate of $3.99
> for your first year.

~~~
zwass
You didn't continue reading to the point where they found the real price
(after the first year): $6.93.

------
ck2
What's weird is these techniques must bring them subscriptions, income, etc.
since they keep using them and keep making them more aggressive.

But who are these idiots who sign up when nagged this way?

Are they the same idiots who buy products when spammed?

Or is this all the same 0.1% return for effort that spammers also rely on,
where it is zero cost for them to spam even if the return rate is tiny.

------
AdamN
For companies like this, do a chargeback through the credit card company. It
will cost them with higher transaction fees over time.

------
baccredited
The reason I switched from DirecTV to Dish is that programming upgrades on
DirecTV can easily be done using the website, but if you want to DOWNGRADE you
have to call them. Dish has its own faults but doesn't do that nonsense.

------
1_2__3
It's funny (in a sad way) that posts like this show up and make it to the top
every once in awhile, in between which we always forget that every company
does this. It's super-shady and they all do it.

------
kempe
Maybe there is an addon or addition to adblocker that simply can stop us from
reaching these sites? Would be nice with a global list of dark pattern sites
and simply be warned about them.

~~~
jobigoud
WOT (Web of Trust) would be a good candidate for this. It's crowdsourced rep
for websites.

Boston Globe is all green though.
[https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.bostonglobe.com](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.bostonglobe.com)

------
Roonerelli
I noticed one of these on the UK National Lottery site recently. It asks you
how many weeks you want to play for and defaults the choice to "continuously
via direct debit"

~~~
anexprogrammer
Direct debits are remarkably easy to cancel though. No need to find the place
you subscribe to, just call your bank, done. Bank required to refund in the
event of an incorrect charge, with no time limit.

Much, much safer for recurring payments than continuous charge authorisation
on a credit card where you have to contact the charger to cancel (or wait for
your card to expire).

------
Sk1pp
it feels like we eventually got rid of pop-ups in the late 90s, and now they
just moved the pop-ups to in-page rather than creating a new window.

------
chris_wot
Unsubscribing by phone is a dreadful practice.

~~~
Nagyman
ZipCar requires a phone call too. Despite being a subscription service, if
your credit card expires, they will send it to debt collections until you call
to officially cancel. Shady.

------
hashkb
WSJ does this too. Don't ask why I was a subscriber, but to cancel you have to
call.

------
marstall
former globe employee here.

i think "dark patterns" is a little strong. most of what the globe's doing
here is just standard on-boarding marketing stuff IMHO. not stating on the
article page itself that the 99c price is temporary hardly seems like a major
sin when that fact is clearly communicated on the landing page.

Looking carefully through all the things the blogger is claiming, I think the
strongest point he makes is that the globe doesn't make it clear that the
"real" price doubles after 1 year.

I am already a subscriber so I couldn't make it through the flow to see
exactly how it's communicated, but if that's not clear, obviously it should be
and that's not a minor point.

I emailed the globe's editor, brian mcgrory, who is definitely a no-BS kind of
guy, telling him lots of boston people are checking this out this morning
(since it's on the HP) and he should respond :)

~~~
albedoa
> most of what the globe's doing here is just standard on-boarding marketing
> stuff IMHO.

What you are acknowledging, perhaps without realizing it, is that standard on-
boarding marketing stuff is deliberately misleading and malicious.

------
knorker
This is the one aspect in which Amazon absolutely sucks.

Do you want Prime? No thanks.

DO YOU WANT PRIME‽ NO!

FUCK YOU DO YOU WANT PRIME‽‽‽‽ FUCK OFF!

For EVERY purchase!

Humongous button saying "yes", not even a button, just a discrete link that
lets me sheepishly say "not right now".

NO! I do not want prime! EVER! It's hugely expensive, I have patience with my
shipping, and I'm completely disinterested in your streaming service.

… and then they change the layout. Now the options are "yes", "yes", and
"maybe later".

Yes. After being an amazon customer for maybe 15 years I finally accidentally
clicked one of the "yes" buttons. The new one. I just clicked "whatever is not
the yes button", but they added a second one.

To their credit, it was pretty easy to say "don't renew after free trial
ends".

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ultimately it may become a requirement. You have to have a membership for many
stores now (Sam's Club, Costco and so on). Amazon is very similar to these;
I'm betting they will go Prime-only in a year or two.

~~~
knorker
I don't think they have enough power to dictate that kind of deal on the
Internet.

It's too easy for merchants to re-organize around another platform if needed.
Amazon wouldn't lose _all_ customers to that service, but they would no longer
be the _only_ place that one buys stuff, which is pretty close to what they
are now.

Going membership-only would simply leave too much money on the table for it to
not be picked up by others.

Ebay I think would be ready to pick up the slack, if nobody else.

------
LordHumungous
We do this all the time. If you are paying us then enjoy your clean, nice
experience. If you aren't paying us then fuck you.

~~~
pluma
But if I _do_ pay you, I expect to be honestly told up front how much you will
be charging me.

That's the one thing that makes the Boston Globe's behaviour unforgivable:
they're not just tricking you into thinking the subscription cost is less than
1/4th of what they actually charge you -- they're ramping the price up twice
and not telling you about the second jump anywhere throughout the subscription
process.

------
greendude29
While this is a shitty practice (and to be honest, I don't really expect
better from most publishing companies), it does tell you on the second page
that the price of 99 cents per week is for 4 weeks only.

I do think it's pretty normal for the consumer to say "okay well, if that's
the price for 4 weeks only, what happens after that?". The fact that that is
not made clear immediately is shady, but I'm not sure it's a true deception.

~~~
elsurudo
And then, after a year, the price goes up again!

------
malchow
Tl;dr: The Boston Globe website tries to get people to subscribe.

Also, the locution "dark patterns" in the headline is a weird term that is,
frankly, more deceptive than anything the writer purports to reveal the Globe
does.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, like it or not, "dark pattern" is the standard term for this sort of
thing. Some of the examples being called out are defensible; some aren't:

> Before you can read the article, there is a pop-up ad asking you to
> subscribe. By itself, this is annoying, but not deceptive. The real dark
> pattern is hidden at the top – the ‘Close’ button (circled in red) uses a
> very low contrast font, making it hard to see. It’s also in the left corner,
> not the standard right corner. This makes it likely that users won’t see it,
> causing them to subscribe when they didn’t have to.

> A Boston Globe reader can subscribe online. If they have a question, they
> can ask over email, or through a convenient live chat service. But if they
> want to stop paying, they have to call and ask on the phone

