The U.S. FTC, along with two other international consumer protection networks, announced on Thursday the results of a study into the use of “dark patterns” – or manipulative design techniques – that can put users’ privacy at risk or push them to buy products or services or take other actions they otherwise wouldn’t have. TechCrunch:
In an analysis of 642 websites and apps offering subscription services, the study found that the majority (nearly 76%) used at least one dark pattern and nearly 67% used more than one. Dark patterns refer to a range of design techniques that can subtly encourage users to take some sort of action or put their privacy at risk. They’re particularly popular among subscription websites and apps and have been an area of focus for the FTC in previous years. For instance, the FTC sued dating app giant Match for fraudulent practices, which included making it difficult to cancel a subscription through its use of dark patterns.
[…] The new report published Thursday dives into the many types of dark patterns like sneaking, obstruction, nagging, forced action, social proof and others. Sneaking was among the most common dark patterns encountered in the study, referring to the inability to turn off the auto-renewal of subscriptions during the sign-up and purchase process. Eighty-one percent of sites and apps studied used this technique to ensure their subscriptions were renewed automatically. In 70% of cases, the subscription providers didn’t provide information on how to cancel a subscription, and 67% failed to provide the date by which a consumer needed to cancel in order to not be charged again.
But what is the word for “knowing what the user wants, blatantly ignoring it and imposing the companies will anyway”?
Enshittification will often involve doing things like this, yes. But as the link itself states, the actual meaning—per Doctorow’s original definition—is an entire process, and a little more descriptive. These things are not the same, one is just frequently a symptom of the other.
Sorry if this comes across as pedantic, I’m in a personal quest, of sorts, to protect the original meaning because I think it’s too important to lose. To anyone else reading this: please, don’t use enshittification when you really only mean “the platform is doing something bad.”
For the quoted behavior, I’m a big proponent of “asshole design.”
In other words, asshole design is only one part of the enshititification process.
Yeah, I think you could say that :^)
The most important things to remember about enshittification are the reasons why it happens in the first place and the particular manner in which it does, time and time again. To anyone interested in this topic, consider giving Doctorow’s talk a watch. It’s great, and explains all of this really well.
You know that it’s not a new concept, right? Just a new word for a specific type of rent seeking that has plagued capitalism forever.
It’s nice to see people learning economics from YA fiction authors, but read some books man
You know that it’s not a new concept, right? Just a new word for a specific type of rent seeking that has plagued capitalism forever.
Any pre-existing name for this specific type of rent seeking you’d rather people used instead? For what it’s worth, I believe enshittification has its own benefits.
It’s nice to see people learning economics from YA fiction authors, but read some books man
There are better ways to express yourself than this.
Being a YA fiction author does not diminish the worth of one’s ideas or their other works. Cory also worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is absolutely a position that, coupled with his many years of studying the digital landscape, gives him a level of insight into it that makes people interested in what he has to say about it, and for good reason. It’s not merely about economics.
If you think people could do the subject, themselves, or others better in this regard by consuming better material, you could point a better direction than “read some books”