> Recently I encountered a new service called Cushion […] They are pushing a 14-day trial, but halfway through the signup process, they ask for credit card details. This is a show-stopper for me, and I’m willing to bet that their drop-off rate here is huge. They are throwing money away.
Well, that's an opinion... maybe they’re actually converting x2 times more...
I guess until you A/B test it you never know! Requiring credit card upfront is not a "Dark Pattern", it's a business decision, and a very effective measure for abuse prevention (among many other things).
Maybe it doesn't work for all the businesses, but for others (like Amazon with its Free Tier or the above example) it looks like works wonders!
It's not that common because you can make a lot of easy money by being dishonest.
I can think of a good few "businesses" that made millions by stiffing their customers in dark pattern ways.
For example - you can bury the fact that a one-off payment is really a monthly subscription in the legal T&Cs.
There are online forums devoted to helping dishonest people do this - often by marketing some craptastic info-product, and then creating a sales funnel that tries to find the most gullible customers and upsells further subscriptions and services to them.
Unfortunately dishonesty, greed, and customer exploitation are capitalist virtues - or at least considered more than excusable if there's profit to be made.
It's not an individual problem so much as a question of collective ethics.
So don't expect dark patterns to disappear because they're immoral: some people are just fine with that.
Yes, crazy. I think that most of the people don't think that are dealing with humans through computers. They just deal with machines, so they can try to fool them.
It's also part of the being really rude on the Internet behind the anonimity that we have.
Well, that's an opinion... maybe they’re actually converting x2 times more...
http://planscope.io/blog/why-im-going-back-to-capturing-cred...
I guess until you A/B test it you never know! Requiring credit card upfront is not a "Dark Pattern", it's a business decision, and a very effective measure for abuse prevention (among many other things).
Maybe it doesn't work for all the businesses, but for others (like Amazon with its Free Tier or the above example) it looks like works wonders!