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If you scroll right to the end, you'll find a great example of a site who thought they were being smart by being shady, and instead annoyed their users enough that people just went elsewhere (experts exchange), even though the measures were easily worked around.

If, as you acknowledge, these are user-hostile patterns, using them is going to lose the trust of your users, and in the end you will flounder, even if in the short term they provide economic benefits. That's the premise of the article, and yes the companies are silly for employing these dark patterns because they're trading long-term trust in their brand (and thus long-term profits) for short-term economic advantage.




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