
Consumers Are Becoming Wise to Your Nudge - hirundo
https://behavioralscientist.org/consumers-are-becoming-wise-to-your-nudge/
======
seieste
Yesterday I went to book a hotel and Priceline had a room for $129, which was
$20 cheaper than Expedia or any other site.

Curious, I clicked on it and went to the Priceline site, and watched as a
JavaScript animation “rolled” the price from $129 to $149 and alerted me that
someone _just_ got the last room. Obviously the whole thing was fake. (Why
would they implement such an animation, and how likely is it that someone got
the room in those two seconds?)

At this point, it’s not even nudging or dark patterns but just straight out
fraud.

~~~
pjdemers
The fraud is the $129 room was gone hours, maybe days ago. It didn't just
sell, the web site simply quoted a price they though was low enough to keep
you from looking elsewhere, within reason. Once you looked serious about
booking, they actually checked the hotel's inventory. You can really tell this
happens when you try to book a room/flight/car that is sold out. They quote
you a price, if you actually try to book, then, they tell you there is no
space. Consolidator travel sites do not check the inventory of every room,
flight, or car they quote you. They can't possibly do that. They are all
estimates until they see your credit card number. One other thing about travel
booking: I don't want the last or even second to last room at a hotel or seat
on a plane. The chances of being bumped are too high. So telling me "only 1
seat left", isn't going to close the deal.

~~~
freeone3000
Why can't they do that? Isn't the entire point of automated inventory
management with resale contracts to grant Expedia the ability to do that?

~~~
cat199
because if the room didn't ever exist at $129, this was false adversing.

~~~
Frost1x
The spirit of false advertising laws seem to have been sidestepped and thrown
out long ago.

------
crazygringo
If "2 rooms left" isn't true, it's not a nudge -- it's fraud. (The author is
misusing the industry term "nudge" in UX, which is about which default option
is selected, or which option you're guided towards most easily.)

Honestly I always assumed that on large booking websites, "2 rooms left" would
be at least "legally" accurate somehow (like there are 12 rooms left, but only
2 of that exact arbitrary configuration of precisely 198 square feet).

Because if not, wouldn't they be opening themselves to a class-action suit
some smart lawyers would be taking advantage of? Isn't that why we have class-
action suits in the first place? (Whereas an individual property site, I'm
less likely to trust because who's going to bother suing.)

If it's a lie, how are Expedia, Priceline etc. not being sued?

~~~
fitzroy
I don't think, it's "2 rooms left at the hotel" or even "2 rooms in the hotel
left (at this price)". I believe it can be "2 rooms left on [whatever booking
site]" — perhaps because there is additional room inventory withheld from the
web site. Or that additional rooms are currently "unpriced" in the database,
and that price is generated at display time.

So after you book the room, another room can be added to the available
inventory, and now there are "two rooms left at this price" again.

I did a bit of traveling last summer (mostly using Hotels.com ). There were
times when I booked the "last room" and then checked again after booking and
there was magically another "last room" available at the same price.

~~~
frei
I've had the experience of needing to book 4 airplane tickets through a
reseller, and having a hunch it would be cheaper to book in 2 goes since there
were only "2 tickets left at this price". Since they had 24hr cancellation, I
took the chance, booked 2 tickets, and was right, after a few minutes, 2 more
tickets were available at the original price.

------
Dotnaught
It's stunning to me that anyone would use a euphemism like "behavioral
interventions" to describe deceit and attempted manipulation – dark patterns.
Marketers show no concern for ethical behavior and yet they complain when
people reject their "nudge" as an assault by blocking ads.

~~~
supergauntlet
I mean this is the core of adtech right? It's built on using psychology to
sell things. That's basically always going to mean some sort of deceit or
asymmetrical information.

When your whole industry, your day-in-day-out work is based on the assumption
that this is normal, of course it all just becomes second nature.

~~~
whatshisface
Adtech could be, in a different world, the industry of finding out who needed
a certain product so that they could be connected to companies selling that
product.

~~~
adverbly
Spoiler alert: most things people buy they don't actually need.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's _because_ of advertising. They wouldn't buy things they don't need if
they weren't being manipulated to do so.

~~~
whatshisface
People are fully capable of making unnecessary purchases off store shelves,
even at antique shops where the goods don't have box art. People _like_ buying
stuff they don't need. I think our corporate overlords are terrified of what
would happen without the mind control, but I think it would just be a more
subdued and happier version of what we have now.

~~~
wutbrodo
I can't imagine what model of the world people have who think that people
wouldn't want things they don't need if it weren't for advertising. This is a
view I see a lot, and it baffles me how anyone could think this having met any
humans or read any history. I'm not endorsing it as salutary, but it's
fundamentally human to want things that are unnecessary; that restlessness is
what's what's driven our history as a species, for better or for woes.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Maybe the word "need" is bad here. People always buy some things for reasons
other than pressing needs. However there's a difference between latent desires
and what advertising does to people. There's a reason why my old boss kept
saying that the key to marketing is "creating dissatisfaction". Or, in other
words, essentially making them miserable so that they seek respite in
purchases. This isn't healthy.

~~~
wutbrodo
No disagreements that advertising manufactures demand to some degree. But the
claim in your upthread comment was that people wouldn't buy what they need
without advertising; you may have meant it more narrowly, but I've seen the
literal sentiment expressed often enough (esp on HN[1]) that I didn't see any
reason not to take the statement at face value.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I accept the blame here for sloppy thinking/writing; I should've expressed my
initial statement more narrowly, instead of tightening it throughout the
discussion.

As you correctly observe, the statement "people wouldn't buy what they need
without advertising" is obviously wrong. What I was getting at was
manufactured demand, and my belief that it's a significant part of non-
immediate-need purchases.

~~~
wutbrodo
Ah OK. You also had the misfortune of accidentally expressing something I've
seen people here express sincerely before, which is why I didn't assume the
more charitable, less-consistent with your comment's meaning.

I don't have any disagreement with the claim that some demand is advertising-
generated (in fact, it's a non-trivial part of advertising's purpose). Thanks
for clarifying!

------
turadg
One thing confuses me in this discussion: are businesses free to lie?

It sounds like businesses might lie, and the consumer is responsible for
detecting that, and the only consequence for the business is that enough
people “kick back”. But that would still mean it’s rational to lie when it
causes a net increase in profits.

Not good for society. Isn’t this something the Federal Trade Commission is
supposed to help with?

~~~
nradov
Lying in general is legal, but fraud and deceptive trade practices aren't. So
it depends on the facts of a particular case.

~~~
stubish
It depends on the jurisdiction. There are a number of locales with 'truth in
advertising' type laws. Around here I see signs for 'probably the best steak
in town' etc., which I find amusing every time I see the weasel wording.

~~~
rhino369
Even most truth in advertising laws allow for some sales puffery. Typically
you can "the best steak in town!" But you can't say "Rated the best steak in
town" if it wasn't.

~~~
Frondo
It also feels like, at this point in history, "Best steak in town!" is, even
if pretty widely untrue (e.g. the steak is leathery, very few people would
consider it edible let alone the best, etc etc), that's a benign kind of
puffery.

People aren't basing large decisions or spending large amounts of money on the
veracity of that being the best steak in town.

I think that's another reason why that stuff gets a pass. It's small-time,
it's local, restaurants already run on razor-thin margins, etc. You can't
systematically defraud ten thousand hotel-bookers a day with a "best steak in
town" sign in your window. And to some extent, we expect everyone to have that
kind of pride in their restaurant, so who cares if they say that stuff?

~~~
tomp
_Taste_ is subjective therefore _best_ is subjective as well. I make the
"best" beef fillet steak (for me), but most people would throw it away (it's
well done, I prefer it like that... but waiters often try to convince me to
change my order if I order a well done steak!).

~~~
perl4ever
I ordered a "well done" _hamburger_ at a bar & grill type place once and it
was delivered _charred_. I supposed the cook was offended, but I didn't get it
- it was just a hamburger.

------
dalbasal
It's marketing, this Hegelian ping pong is continuous. At one point in time
€XX.99 was new, miney-back guarantees were new, introductory rates...

The most interesting part to me here is:

" _a world saturated with behavioral interventions might no longer resemble
the one in which those interventions were first studied._ "

This is where the intentional pseudo-science of consumer behaviour^ kind of of
meets the world of (at least aspirationally) sciences, psychology, behavioural
economics, etc..

Does the invisible hand Adam Smith described still work the same way once we
are all hyper aware of it. Is it still invisible? Do any human behaviour
discoveries mean anything outside of their narrow time and place contexts. Can
we tell the difference between ones that do or don't?

Can we really learn about human behaviour?

^it's intentional pseudo science because it isn't looking for truth, just
useful tactics using some scientific (or pseudo-scientific) methodology.

------
sp332
I understand playing up the strengths of a product and minimizing the
weaknesses, but I don't know how baldfaced lies like "2 rooms left!" were ever
acceptable. That's just the business jumping up and waving a flag that they
can't be trusted. Sometimes I'll still buy something but only if I can tell
myself that the person who made the website is probably not the person I'm
actually doing business with.

~~~
jerkstate
as a counterpoint "going out of business" sales are common in the brick and
mortar world, especially in sectors like furniture.

~~~
siphon22
I know such a furniture store thats been going out of business for like 3
years. Pretty amusing.

~~~
bluGill
Are you sure it is the same store? 20 years ago (and probably only applies to
my state) you could only order 3x (I don't recall exact numbers or details)
your current inventory once you announce the going out of business sale, and
you had to be in business for a year an a half. People would open a furniture
store, give good deals for 18 months - just to eat. Then they will sell out
for a lot of money to a going out of business company who would cram the store
with inventory, raise prices and then do the sale. When the doors closed
(because they were out of inventory) the old owner would start a new store in
the same location under a slightly difference name and repeat the cycle.

~~~
siphon22
Nothing about the store differed externally in the years that i looked at it,
but ive never gone inside so maybe it was changed in some way like you
mention? I live in California btw but im not aware of the laws regarding this.

------
Tepix
I started to book two one way plane tickets the other day (with both Eurowings
and Ryanair). During both booking processes I saw a messages claiming "seats
are going fast, book now" or something like that.

However in the next step of the booking process I was allowed to pick my seat.
In both cases, the plane wasn't even 50% full.

It's stupid if you make it so transparent to your customers that you are lying
to them.

PS: I ended up not booking the flight that day, the next day one of the
flights was 15% cheaper. :-)

PPS: I have my browser configured to delete all cookies when I close it.

~~~
travisp
Don't both of those airlines make you pay more to select your seat? It's
possible they were lying, but it also seems plausible that seats were sold but
not assigned yet.

~~~
Tepix
Good point. OTOH the fact the price went down over night indicates that they
are having problems filling the plane.

------
Animats
_" Two thirds of the British public (65 percent) interpreted examples of
scarcity and social proof claims used by hotel booking websites as sales
pressure. Half said they were likely to distrust the company as a result of
seeing them (49 percent). Just one in six (16 percent) said they believed the
claims."_

 _" (34 percent) expressed a negative emotional reaction to these messages,
choosing words like contempt and disgust from a precoded list._"

There goes your reputation.

Amazon has become really bad. I have to decline "Amazon Prime" three times to
get to checkout. Remember when they boasted of "one-click ordering?" And they
lie, claiming that "Amazon Prime" is free.

~~~
perl4ever
Well, I'm beginning to think that some retailers have exposed patterns that
consumers can exploit. I noticed that even without Amazon Prime I get a free
shipping option, which is _supposed_ to be slow, but almost always comes about
as quickly as Prime. I just got an order from another business, which gave me
several choices - I could have spent $20 on shipping, but I took the free one
that was supposed to take a few weeks, and it got to me in two days.

------
dvtrn
"Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed".

Anybody ever find themselves wondering "have they?"

or even worse "no they haven't" when it's a hotline you're familiar with

~~~
maest
I've had instances where I get told that "our lines are unfortunately very
busy at the moment. If you do not wish to wait, you can find more information
at our website or you can send an email at bla@bla.com. We expect the average
waiting time to be 20 minutes."

If you wait past that discouraging message, you get transfered to their
support centre, and your call gets picked up in ~2-3 minutes.

That message is a blatant attempt to reduce the load on their customer support
by discouraging callers and making it a painful to use channel.

~~~
dvtrn
_That message is a blatant attempt to reduce the load on their customer
support by discouraging callers and making it a painful to use channel_

This was my precise experience implementing analysis software, interactive
telephony ("Your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes") and
going through the business case with senior management at an east coast call
center ten years ago for a major consumer electronics and home appliance
manufacturer, you probably have one of their smartphones in your pocket right
now--call takers were saddled with what I thought were obscenely short call
windows to resolve a call and be ready to take the next; three minutes to
troubleshoot, diagnose and help a customer fix a washing machine, for example.
One second over and the agents score went down, and they would face penalties.

What got implemented was a maze of menu options that (and I can say this
authoritatively and quite honestly) were not captured beyond the second level
to filter and properly triage calls into hunt-groups or queues, or even do any
sort of business analysis to determine where the most of our calls were going,
but were deliberately designed to give agents more time on their existing
calls and keep the hold queue artificially small.

This is what exists at the root of my suspicion that this "menu options have
changed" maneuver is all about numbers and stats that are ultimately
meaningless in every practical definition that could be applied here.

\--- parting note:

Ten years and a different telecom company later, I find myself staring at an
email last week with the call center company's name on it, we've just signed a
strategic partnership with them. Is it irony? Who knows. Am I chuckling
morbidly? God yes.

~~~
nofunsir
How does one defeat these evil systems?

For example, I recently had an emergency that I HAD to get in touch with a
company, but kept being rerouted, re-advertized to, hung up on.

The emergency unfortunately was not handled in time.

~~~
kingnothing
Try this: [https://gethuman.com/](https://gethuman.com/)

I have no association with that site other than using it occasionally.

------
jnty
Maybe it's time to go retro. I don't see any 'ONE MILLIONTH VISITOR!' banner
ads any more, time to bring those back..?

------
PaulHoule
I think spam/scam is reaching a crisis level and it is impacting everyone who
tries to communicate with the public.

When Hillary Clinton kicked off her 2016 campaign she wrote an article on
LinkedIn proposing that we cut the interest rate for student loans.

At the time I was getting two or three calls a day from "card services" which
offered to "cut my interest rate"; these calls often had spoofed caller id. (I
think everybody else was getting these calls.)

Clinton didn't answer her own phone, so she didn't know this, and didn't
realize that her message sounded spammy and scammy because people were being
saturated with similar messages.

(Lately Ithaca phone numbers, but not surrounding rural areas, have been
saturated with calls in Mandarin Chinese. My aspie-linguist friend tells me
that the calls claim to be from the Chinese Embassy -- it seems to be some
kind of effort to shake down Chinese students.)

For a long time the people I did marketing work with insisted that every web
page end with a "call to action" but I think now that is a sure way to come
across as inauthentic because I get pushback from readers.

------
_bxg1
Honest question: how do blatant lies in ecommerce not fall under false
advertising law?

[https://www.classlawgroup.com/consumer-protection/false-
adve...](https://www.classlawgroup.com/consumer-protection/false-
advertising/laws/)

~~~
wcfields
Let's just say I'm still waiting on my 7,000,000 Pepsi Points Harrier Jet to
be fulfilled.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc).

~~~
mrob
That they managed to work the concept of "puffery" (their propaganda term for
lies) into the law tells you everything you need to know about advertising
industry ethics.

~~~
CPLX
That's not a fair argument.

It's pretty clear that there's a universally understandable difference between
these two advertising statements:

"Bill Davis is the greatest real estate agent in the history of world
civilization."

"Bill Davis has sold more real estate than any other agent in Des Moines this
year."

~~~
ghaff
In all fairness though, a typical conservative legal department is going to
take one look at that first statement and ask for documentation that it's
true. Which, of course, you won't be able to provide.

Not everything said by a company spokesperson or written on a web page is
fully vetted by legal but ads specifically often are.

------
geggam
Spent several months in the EU, come back to the US and the marketing here is
like a "transiberian orchestra sensory overload show" in comparison

~~~
PavlovsCat
I'm from and in Europe sick and tired of ads being everywhere, public
transport, giant posters, and so on. That it's even worse elsewhere doesn't
make the shit I'm wading through daily any more palatable.

~~~
rchaud
Are physical ads like the ones you describe really so burdensome? As long as
it's a poster, and not a bright, distracting video ad on a giant screen (I see
these at bus stops), I don't mind them. Sometimes the design of the ads are
interesting, even if the product they're selling is not.

~~~
kartan
> Are physical ads like the ones you describe really so burdensome?

Yes. They are everywhere. I cannot look at a building, a road, or go to the
subway without seeing a hundred advertisements. My brain will try to read
automatically any text in my field of vision. It is exhausting. My job is
complex enough to overload my brain with things I do not need or care about.

It's a war on human attention. And we need de-escalation.

I guess that it is different for each individual. And, your experience is not
like mine. But for the ones like me it needs to stop.

~~~
trophycase
Thank you. Most people underestimate the amount of energy it takes to filter
these out constantly.

~~~
ryandrake
It’s pollution, but stinky to your mind rather than your nose. I’ve picked
different routes to work just to avoid billboards and advertising.

------
andrewla
This is a classic example of a study in the social sciences that confirms my
prejudices, but whose actual methodology is almost entirely meaningless.

The participants are not asked to make any consequential decision based on the
information, but just to fill out a survey saying whether they believed the
claims. A nudge-conomist would say that even though people have stated
preferences, their acted-upon preferences can diverge, so this study proves
nothing.

Even though I'm disposed to believe that nudges like this do create "nudge
fatigue" and that people rapidly become immune to it (like the $*.99 pricing
model), this study does nothing to confirm or dispute that notion.

~~~
mobjack
This is the type of thing that you can run a controlled experiment on by
running a simple AB test.

People often say that these type of tactics turn them off, evidence usually
shows that they are still effective.

Maybe it does turn off some but not enough to stop a sale while increasing
conversion from others.

~~~
perl4ever
Or, everyone does it so people end up choosing from what's available.

------
Finnucane
It's almost as if people were organisms capable of learning about stimuli in
their environment and adapting their behavior accordingly.

------
boromi
Even broader I believe. For example recently I purchased a Vizio TV and based
on their advertising of the TV on their website, it said it included a Android
tablet remote (and they showed pictures of it on the page).

Apparently that was for last years model not the newer model I purchased.
Needless to say, customer service was adamant at telling me they would not
send me the android remote control because that is not included in this years
model. Completely false advertising. I didn't bother further than this
complaint.

------
julianlam
A lot of Shopify (or other similar) sites use a nudge where a little toaster
pops up and says "so and so from Canmore, Ontario just purchased widget xyz"

I never really thought much about it until someone (I think on here or Reddit)
pointed out how it was annoying and a blatant sales tactic.

I suppose I never really assumed the worst, it's really a matter of how you
define "just purchased". If you're talking to a flesh and blood salesman, he
or she will also say things like "I just sold a pair of knives to your
neighbour". Maybe it was 10 minutes ago, maybe it was last week, but the
statement itself is true, I suppose? In my neck of the woods, I get lots of
driveway sealant salespeople saying they're "doing a house down the street".
Are they lying? I never really thought so, but maybe they are.

If they had done zero sales and were saying otherwise, then that'd be lying.

~~~
adtechblah
This happened to my wife once for something she was thinking of purchasing.
While she was deciding, I went to my own computer and opened the web site and
watched it. After like 3 minutes, it started repeating names, which led me to
believe that they had only sold a couple dozen units! Also, it's pretty awful
if you have a fairly unique first name. "Adolph from Palm Springs just bought
our hemorrhoid cream!" Great, now the only guy named Adolph in Palm Springs is
outed.

------
i_am_nomad
I’d love to build some kind of front end, “plain” website that allows to
purchase from a number of established online vendors, but uses their APIs or
affiliate interfaces and strips away all the dark pattern evil. At one point
that more or less described Amazon, but they’ve been using some amount of that
too.

~~~
Liquix
Some amount? Amazon is rife with dark patterns! Amazon's choice, default
"featured" search order, inability to filter certain categories by price,
childish refusal to sell Google/Apple/<any competitor big enough to actually
compete> devices, Prime walled gardens, etc...

~~~
i_am_nomad
You’re right, though Amazon’s dark patterns are more back-end, operations-
level practices - I really meant the web interface. Even still, that has dark
patterns embedded in it, like the refusal to sort by price you mentioned.

------
jnordwick
"scarcity and social proof messages so overused in travel websites that the
average person does not believe them"

The example given, hotel bookings, it wasn't the use of these behavioral
interventions, it was that the consumer realized the website repeatedly lies
about it. There aren't really only 2 rooms left and 17 people have viewed it,
it is purely the website being dishonest so often that it is assumed to always
be dishonest

There is such a going as honest advertising, but these companies chose to
misrepresent information.

That the authors take away seems to be it is the overuse of the lie means
he'll probably come across the solution that they need to lie better or find a
different lie.

Them consumers will get used to that lie and companies will come pay him for a
third lie...

~~~
jcutrell
Or create a genuinely scarce product.

For these interventions to work, they have to have validity. You can’t
fabricate scarcity - it needs to be a real thing or else of course eventually
it will be ignored.

~~~
corecoder
> Or create a genuinely scarce product.

But can you mass product it?

~~~
vajrabum
Ask Nike or Magic the Gathering!

------
ptah
"Nudge" should be "dark pattern"

------
twirlock
Like three decades later, it's no longer considered a conspiracy theory to
think marketing exists. We consumers really wised up.

------
amelius
I think common sales strategies are just as bad as unsolicited flirtatious
behavior that annoys many women around the world. Perhaps we can make them
illegal on similar grounds.

Whether you're going after my money or after my body does not seem like a
fundamental difference, really.

------
oicu812
The "nudge" in the title of this article is drawing from the book "Nudge:
Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" [1] which cites one
of the best nudges ever introduced - automatic enrollment in retirement
savings plans. You can also learn more about true nudges from the Freakonomics
Radio recordings. [2]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-
Happ...](https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-
Happiness/dp/014311526X) [2] [http://freakonomics.com/podcast-
tag/nudge/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/nudge/)

------
jcutrell
I wonder if the hole left by failing interventions is actually an opportunity
for a different type of intervention.

The whole point of BE-based intervention is that humans have a limited amount
of reasoning power to put towards a given decision and can’t always choose
rationally, so the nudge is amplifying a heuristic to make it easier to choose
something.

The restrictions of human cognition don’t go away - a failing tactic might
simply mean opportunity for a new tactic.

We’ve seen this example with things like “fair pricing model” - this is a
heuristic shortcut for trustworthiness. You aren’t trying to nudge me? Great!

Certainly new interventions will surface in response.

~~~
mindslight
> _humans have a limited amount of reasoning power to put towards a given
> decision and can’t always choose rationally, so the nudge is amplifying a
> heuristic to make it easier to choose something_

That's a pretty disingenuous way of describing a multi-party interaction with
divergent interests. It's not "easier" for the user because the "nudger"
[manipulator] is trying to further exhaust the user's decision making
capabilities to the manipulator's benefit. In fact, it's much harder if the
user does not want to be taken advantage of.

------
jellicle
When I see a website lying to me in our interactions (two rooms left, going
fast, yeah sure), I just assume that if you're starting out our business
trying to defraud me, it's not going to get any better and immediately nope
out of there.

I don't care if they have rooms $10 cheaper. If you've already proved you will
lie to me, I'd just be foolish to engage in any business with you at all. I
might not detect your next attempt to cheat me, or I might be more vulnerable
having already given you my money, or something like that. Much better in the
long run just to decline to do business at all.

------
asdfman123
"Are customers as dumb as we thought? Survey says: no."

------
WalterBright
This has always been happening. Go back in time a decade at a time and watch a
few TV commercials. The sales tactics used become more and more transparent
and laughable the older they are.

It's a lot like stock picking. Strategies that work become more and more
sophisticated over time because the results of the simpler schemes are already
factored into the price as they became known.

------
MayeulC
While I am really against these practices, this sounds like a nice use case
for the multi-armed bandit that was mentioned the other day on HN.

Show 10% of the people the version that works less well. Let the system adjust
itself based on user feedback.

~~~
MayeulC
As I cannot edit to provide a link to the story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20022485](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20022485)

------
kevin_b_er
What the website calls "nudges" I call "lies".

------
JulianMorrison
Any Bene Gesserit could have told you not to overuse the Voice.

------
bogomipz
Booking.com seems to take this a step further by including unavailable hotel
rooms in search results with a "sold out, just missed it" label superimposed
over them. That's pretty much the height of absurdity. It's the online
equivalent of a used car salesman. It's really a gross experience. Booking.com
unfortunately seems to have a lock on booking in Europe. I would be interested
in hearing if and how folks are booking rooms in Europe without them.

------
dalore
What about us poor sites that actually tell the truth in how many rooms are
left, how many people are viewing etc?

~~~
julianlam
I think if you're honest about it, then it is easier to have the end user
trust you. It's the "in your face" nudge that's inappropriate.

For example, if you had a nondescript button that said "check room
availabilities" and actually did it, I'd trust that over a toaster that said
"two rooms left!"

------
carapace
When you hook a computer up to a brain, which end of the connection has the
more sophisticated information processing system?

When you hook a network of computers up to a network of brains, where is the
more sophisticated information processing happening?

I pity the fool who suffers under the illusion of control.

------
dgzl
NPR this morning was essentially praising this tactic.

~~~
i_am_nomad
I’m curious - I looked but couldn’t find this on their website.

~~~
dgzl
It was on Morning Edition on OPB radio at around 7:45-8:10PT (Oregon Public
Broadcasting, essentially a glove for NPR's hand). I wish I remembered more
about the context.

------
sonnyblarney
There's a wide gap between fake information and real information.

On Via rail (Canada's Amtrack) you can see that 'there's only 3 seats left' in
that category, but in my experience I think it's legit information.

Frankly - it's kind of useful as I sometimes delay booking, but I know the
cheap tickets will be sold at some point.

Maybe there are some question marks about the 'darkness' of that pattern, but
it's different than those sites that categorically lie or misrepresent.

I suggest if airlines/hotels are outright lying about some kinds of
information, they should face fines, legislation, regulation.

------
b_tterc_p
And yet, the majority of Americans (narrowly, even young americans) don't use
adblockers.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's kinda blaming the victim, isn't it?

I, as a technical person, can generally tell when a website's failing because
of an adblocker false positive, and know how to fix it. I know what the
reputable extensions are, and I keep track of which ones get captured by the
industry (like Adblock Plus). My webdev experience lets me know how important
they are from a security standpoint.

A random non-technical person likely doesn't know any of this.

~~~
luckylion
> I, as a technical person, can generally tell when a website's failing
> because of an adblocker false positive, and know how to fix it.

How often does that happen? I believe that most people will be fine if the
occasional website breaks because the benefit of ad-free/ad-reduced surfing is
so large.

~~~
ceejayoz
I find it's fairly common, especially with things like uBlock Origin that
block _privacy_ impacting stuff as well as advertisements.

Doubly so if you tend to use stuff like "Login with Facebook".

~~~
gpm
I've used unlock origin (with the default settings) for years, I literally
can't think of a time when I turned it off to fix something.

Maybe it helps that I don't use "sign in with Facebook", but still, I use the
internet a lot more heavily than most people.

~~~
ceejayoz
I just had to turn it off about 5 minutes ago to pay my health insurance bill,
as an example.

