I have adopted a zen posture to this sort of hypocrisy which involves believing both these things:
1. It is good to call out hypocrisy like this article does where a publishing entity is engaged in behavior completely contrary to the behavior called for in their published words.
2. It is also good that the reporter’s journalism is sufficiently free (as in freedom) that they are able to write so independently of the behavior of the mother ship.
Like, the world would definitely be a worse place if reporters at Bloomberg declined to do some of the excellent reporting they’ve done on tech company tax dodges just because (hypothetically) Bloomberg was a tech company that did some corporate tax dodging. It’s good that they do it. It’s also fine that people note the cognitive dissonance.
It’s sort of like how I feel about Googlers protesting sexual harassment or the China search project. Personally I still think they are affiliated with a company that engages in a lot of bad practices but good on them for at least trying to change some thing however small. And at the same time I feel free to say “well ya they’re protesting this guy who was abusing his underlings but their company is abusing all of us” or whatever.
I agree. But also before hitting publish they should have done a quick check of their own UX. This would have shown a good faith effort as opposed to a hypocritical take-down. It would have also illustrated a richer perspective on why these types of dark patterns get built into products in the first place, as I write in the second half of the essay.
The hypocrisy in employees is when they continue to reap the financial benefits of their institutions. The cliche “you can’t expect a person to know a subject if their salary depends on not knowing it.” Ignorance is not a valid excuse when they’ve clearly indicated an outspoken awareness of the problems in the org. The excuse in this case is “instituting change from within”
It's really not alright to step on the pulpit to point fingers left and right when your house is also not in order, it makes it seem more like you're trying to move forward your business agenda rather than really caring about the issue.
>It's really not alright to step on the pulpit to point fingers left and right when your house is also not in order, it makes it seem more like you're trying to move forward your business agenda rather than really caring about the issue.
What does this mean? Are you speaking to the author of the parent comment or in general? What is this un-orderliness you've alluded to?
I'm speaking to the author of the comment I replied to who basically states that the article was purely good because of the topic, without having any critical eye towards it. And the un-orderliness is in the title of the article commented on, nyt has dark patterns on their site as well.
The author of the NYT piece is a member of the editorial board so he should be held to a higher standard than employees of a business that protest its practices, while probably having no power over setting them. A member of the editorial board is certainly in a more powerful position, relatively speaking, to make changes in their newspaper and surely he could have talked about the example set by the business he works for. If Google came out with PR that pointed at Apple tracking users of its phones, something that is factually true, they would be rightfully laughed at because they are the last ones that can complain that someone tracks people.
Fwiw I don’t think it’s purely good, I both judge and applaud the article, hence the “zen” language. I think it’s good to criticize the hypocrisy. But also much better that the article exists than not. You’d see basically no journalism if journalists were constrained by the behavior of their owners to never be such hypocrites by association.
> that they are able to write so independently of the behavior of the mother ship.
Or maybe they are completely oblivious and blind. Possible explanation as well, very common for people who criticize others before looking at themselves.
I called to cancel. I was offered $14/month promotion, and then after I agreed to the deal and gave them credit card they said I will be charged $14 every 4 weeks. I said agreed to $14/month, that's not the same as $14 every 4 weeks, because $14/month is $168 per year, but $14 every 4 weeks is $182.49 per year. They said they will charge $14 every 4 weeks, and I decided to cancel because of their scammy offer.
For years, every AT&T and Comcast salesperson I talked with quoted me megabytes per second instead of megabits per second.
They would insist that they were right if I ever asked them to clarify the units of measurement. One time the salesperson was so sure that he was right that he conferenced in a tech support person…who informed him they did not sell megabytes/second, only megabits. The salesperson was very confused.
"For example people will often say give me that liter of wine, when in fact the bottle it’s 750ml"
No one has ever said this. Ever. In the history of ever.
Wine and spirits in the US were sold as "fifths" or one fifth of a US gallon, equal to 757ml. This became a "metric fifth" or 750ml. No one is even slightly confused by this.
In Spain (a liter-only country very adept to wine) you can buy wine in two ways:
1. By the bottle. Bottles are usually 750ml, but 700ml and 1000ml are not that rare. In any case, you bought that bottle of that specific wine brand/year. The quantity is whatever the producer decided. The price is per bottle and quantity doesn't factor in.
2. By volume. This is only used when you buy in bulk. You go to a winery where they have huge barrels with a faucet. You can taste the wine and then buy any quantity you want (you can even bring your own container).
Or in the case of megabyte vs megabit, it's in fact a 125ml bottle.
I understand what you're saying, but it's a bit disappointing that the company doesn't train their salespeople to understand the bullet points they're trying to sell. This isn't really CCNA-level knowledge.
This happens with almost everything that I'm subscribed to. It's one dark pattern that I am ashamed to participate in... But the public never pushed back on it.
I've considered actually subscribing to news media but the behaviour of the NYT and a few known others have left me not to trust the entire industry to behave responsibly with a subscription, so I am at least 1 anecdote of someone not subscribing because of knowledge of the cancellation process
Same with me. In my case, the Economist, who does the same like the New York Times. Subscribing is a click, canceling is a call to a representative who will talk to me about how they "love to discuss a more affordable or flexible subscription option so that you can keep enjoying everything The Economist has to offer" https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/How-do-I-cancel-my...
If you want to avoid Economist business practices, but still access the coverage, I found DiscountMags to be fairly pain-free experience. They manage the customer info and billing, and have a "rate protect" feature, where they promise to get you exact same (or lower) price next year, or cancel the subscription otherwise.
I remember that same experience, really annoying. These days I’ve been using Privacy.com which generates a one-time use CC for anything that I want to use for the free trial period. (I am in no way affiliated with this service btw, just a happy customer).
Why can't there just be an option to subscribe for one year and it cancels? No auto-renewals, just a polite reminder it's about to expire. The world is filled with roach-motel dark patterns everywhere that I never subscribe to anything, and they're losing out on people like me.
I like the NYT for the occasional article. I subscribed for something that interested me, and then I had to chat with a support representative during the NYTs business hours to actually cancel.
Nir here, author of the blog post.
Question - Did anyone else notice that the NYT did not accurately describe what the "roach motel" dark pattern is in their original piece?
They wrote, "To prevent your information from being shared with third parties, you have to opt out after the payment screen."
But that's not the roach motel, that's a default.
According to DarkPatterns dot org, a roach motel is when the "...design makes it very easy for you to get into a certain situation, but then makes it hard for you to get out of it."
Why did the NYT get something like this wrong?
It's written by Henry Brignull who literally wrote the book on dark patterns, acts as an expert witness on dark patterns and I'm pretty sure originally coined the term "roach motel" (in this context) so.... yes?
> I told the representative I wanted to cancel. Then I was offered reasons not to. I responded with “no thanks” each time. Then, I waited for the representative to reply and come back with several rounds of offers to get me not to cancel. On and on, the process went until I was finally allowed to leave.
That's fairly easy to deal with. Answer every question, argument, and pitch from the representative with "please cancel my subscription".
Indeed, I was planning to find a California VPN to avoid the chat/call, but really it took maybe 2 minutes of idle chat to deal with it. Even my low bar for BS wasn’t that triggered. honestly I was more hopefully that they’d renew the $1/month offer instead, but nothing.
Right after the first question, someone should try replying in the lines of:
I have expressed in no unclear terms that I want to cancel my subscription and I don't want to answer any further non-essential questions about it. Any further questions that are not legally necessary to terminate our relationship will be considered usage of my professional consulting services at the rate of 10$/minute for which I will send you a bill after the call finishes. How may we proceed?
It's a nice thought, but nothing would happen. They might even just cancel the chat to annoy you. Or they might continue asking you questions. In either case they wouldn't owe you money for it. They didn't engage into a contract with you just because you sent them that message.
That said you might have certain consumer protections you're not aware of. I had cell phone plan with Comviq here in Sweden that I wanted to cancel and they said on their website that I needed to call. Swedish law requires my being able to cancel in various ways (e.g. sending a letter, or sending an email, etc.) regardless of what they said in their initial contract. So I found an address and just sent them an email stating I wanted to cancel. In a day or two it was done. I presume they know they are legally required to do so and so they did what I said, but I'm also sure they happy to provide conflicting information making consumers unaware of their rights. I reported their website to our consumer protection authorities, but I never heard back.
Given the NYT’s overall style and editorial choices these days, it’s a fair heading more broadly.
Prime case in point: They have elevated opinionated moral crusading over responsible and informative reporting. If moral activism is the value the organization purports to elevate, it’s fair to call the organization dishonest when it employs transparently immoral business practices. Whether the editorial board is involved or not.
Sorry but no one who has worked at a newspaper for more than a day believes this.
If a cub reporter wants to run a story that will piss off your largest advertiser, I can guarantee that it will be discouraged by any editor interested in keeping their job.
Me too. Guess we had different experiences. Regardless, I can assure you that the NYT Editorial Board holds very little sway over the subscriptions dept.
Indeed. Obviously it's bad that the NYT is using these dark patterns. But it would be worse if the NYT would just stop to cover dark patterns, because of that. It's a sign of a working separation between the journalistic and business sides.
> the members of the editorial board have very little connection to the business side of the newspaper
And yet you will never see the editorial side write negative things about the business side of the newspaper.
People bring up this distinction that there is some barrier between the two, but its a very weak argument, since the incentives of both are the same (to increase the newspapers revenue)
I do think the paper made a huge mistake in eliminating the public editor position, which was essentially dedicated to criticism of the paper.
I think you would be surprised with how little the editorial team at newspapers concerns themselves with revenue. It's to the point where it's often actually harmful to the organization.
No company is a monolith, but the company, as an organization, is responsible for everything that happens inside the org. This is why it’s fair to criticize Amazon when it has poor worker safety issues in its warehouses, instead of needing to know what specific warehouse managers are in charge of those facilities. Or why it’s fair to criticize Apple for increasing their own ad business while cracking down on other companies’, when those are obviously different units.
In the same way, it is very fair to call out hypocrisy in the NYT’s behavior, even if it happens in two different units of the business. They don’t get a pass just because one unit happens to be journalists or something.
The New York Times absolutely is a monolith, whether they like it or not. They operate under one banner and in fact companies like NYT trade on their one trusted name. The general public considers them a monolith.
That's happened to me too, and every time I consider re-subscribing, I remember my terrible experience canceling my subscription so I decide not to. Summary of my experience: https://twitter.com/esesci/status/1357280929316622336
Normally I'm not a huge fan of throwing in new laws but I do think it would be reasonable to legislate that unsubscribing from a service must be as easy as subscribing. If we are going to give companies the legal ability to auto-charge you each month, we should give people the legal ability to stop that at any time easily.
California has done that, and hence NYT allows you to unsubscribe online without this hassle if it's IP geo-detection detects you're in california, which exposes this as the business/retention decision it is and not a technical limitation.
> Normally I'm not a huge fan of throwing in new laws but I do think it would be reasonable to legislate that unsubscribing from a service must be as easy as subscribing
> I was surprised, however, to find the New York Times uses the very same dark pattern it derides to prevent its own subscribers from canceling.
It was very simple for me to cancel my NYT subscription. I got a new credit card because the old one was getting mysterious charges on it. I forgot that NYT had that card on my subscription. I soon started getting dunning notices on it, and logged in to change the card number. The NYT kept rejecting the new card, and I gave up.
Generally speaking I try not to sign up for any service where the terms are deeply onerous or the industry has a bad reputation (like with gyms). For most SaaS and other online subscription models, I've found that cancelling a card is a pretty easy way to let the subscription lapse.
If a company does this, I am NEVER subscribing again.
Whereas if a company makes cancelling/renewing super painless I'm going to come and go as a customer as it fits my needs. This results in more overall business for the company.
I am literally going through this right now: A company called "Ooma" makes dongles that provide voice-over-IP for landline phones (inc. a telephone number), for $10/month with "no contract." But our use-case isn't every month, it is once every few months, and they require call-to-cancel/hassle-to-cancel, so now we're reviewing alternatives that are more legitimately flexible.
They're literally going to lose my recurring business only because of this anti-consumer practice.
I subscribed to The Economist for a quarter. Loved it, read every article in every issue. I ran into some slightly difficult times so I decided to cancel, intending to pick it back up later. But their cancellation process was full of dark patterns (ultimately I had to make a phone call to an operator in Singapore) and there's simply no way in hell I'll ever come back.
I cancelled my Netflix at the same time and have come and gone several times since, as they make it as easy as possible.
I don't understand how dark patterns like these are ever a good long-term business strategy for a company
You drain user trust for short term gain. What is the point of continuing to take someone's money if they no longer use your product? If someone doesn't want my product, I sure as hell don't want their money and would be embarrassed if they ever paid by mistake
That's exactly right! I think just as interesting is how good people make such bad decisions within a company. That's why I wrote in the article that using dark patterns is a symptom of a screwed up company culture.
The irony is NYT ran an article chastising Amazon for the very thing they also engage in.
I recently had to call NYT to cancel my membership. The person on the other side ran me through a script, and each time I told them I didn’t want their counter offers. It was annoying.
To be honest here, I canceled my NYT subscription because of the very subtle yet obvious propaganda laced in their articles on a recent news event. They present themselves as honest reporters, when in reality there’s language that in a subtle manner takes a clear side and provides a distorted view of a complex situation.
The honest truth in my opinion is the NYT isn’t honest or more objective than other papers. Yet time and time again, their reporting is viewed as gospel.
if you can sign up for the membership online. there is no reason to call anyone to cancel. Netflix is by far the best subscription service. i have sub, unsub and resub several time with just few clicks.
Kinda related but the NYT somehow kept on charging me even after I froze and then closed a privacy.com card associated with the account (this went on for months). No idea how it happened but I eventually had to spend 30 minutes going through the maze to cancel.
I had the same experience cancelling my subscription. I was able to avoid the sales pitch the author received (I guess I was a little firmer), but I doubt I'll be subscribing again after I realized there was no unsubscribe button.
LPT: sub things using a Privacy virtual debit card. If unsubbing is hard, email the company you want to unsubscribe and then shut the card off with a single click. They tend to unsub you quickly when you stop paying.
I think apple's in-app ads have the worst dark patterns. I tried to find a game for my elderly mom that didn't try to get you to install some other app every few minutes via a full-screen popup. No dice.
This reminded me of the time where I read somewhere (I don't have the source, unfortunately) that the fastest way to cancel the NYT(?) subscription online over the chat was to say "I am going to jail."
1. It is good to call out hypocrisy like this article does where a publishing entity is engaged in behavior completely contrary to the behavior called for in their published words.
2. It is also good that the reporter’s journalism is sufficiently free (as in freedom) that they are able to write so independently of the behavior of the mother ship.
Like, the world would definitely be a worse place if reporters at Bloomberg declined to do some of the excellent reporting they’ve done on tech company tax dodges just because (hypothetically) Bloomberg was a tech company that did some corporate tax dodging. It’s good that they do it. It’s also fine that people note the cognitive dissonance.
It’s sort of like how I feel about Googlers protesting sexual harassment or the China search project. Personally I still think they are affiliated with a company that engages in a lot of bad practices but good on them for at least trying to change some thing however small. And at the same time I feel free to say “well ya they’re protesting this guy who was abusing his underlings but their company is abusing all of us” or whatever.