They made computers behave like annoying salesmen

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Erosion of Consent and Dark Patterns

  • Many apps/OSes have replaced “never ask me again” with “not now” loops that reset and nag repeatedly.
  • People describe this as harassment rather than real choice; the system only stops when you give the “right” answer.
  • Examples: YouTube Shorts and banners, Windows 11 and Edge prompts, iOS Health and Apple News banners, Gmail-on-iOS pushing Chrome, Apple’s reactions and News, app-rating popups, store apps pushing “open in our app”.

Why Companies Do It

  • Commenters agree it’s deliberate: funnels, DAU, “engagement” and promotions are optimized, while user respect is unmeasured externality.
  • Some argue these behaviors confer a competitive advantage (like pollution) unless regulated; others say they burn trust and damage reputations long term.
  • Observation that many users simply accept defaults/preinstalls, so nagging works and spreads.

Regulation, Law, and Market Power

  • Strong thread arguing only legislation can set a floor (e.g., dark-pattern bans, interoperability, reverse engineering rights, DMA-style rules).
  • Counterpoint: individual refusal and open source adoption still matter, but are often not realistic when platforms are monopolistic or two-sided (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook groups, student orgs on Instagram).
  • Analogies to casino legalization and constitutional/rights erosion: powerful actors keep “re-asking” until they win once, then never ask again.

Responsibility Inside Companies

  • Debate over blaming UX designers vs PMs vs executives.
  • Some see any participation as complicity; others say refusing over a “shitty but not clearly unethical” UX is unrealistic self-sacrifice.
  • Engineers are also seen as sharing blame; incentives and promotion systems reward engagement metrics, not user dignity.

User Coping Strategies and FOSS

  • Many uninstall any app that interrupts workflows with unrelated prompts; some propose making this a named “law”.
  • Heavy use of adblockers, alternative clients (where legal), notification channel tuning, and browser element blocking to fight nags.
  • Several frame this as a concrete advertisement for free/open-source software, where users can fork, patch, or choose tools that actually obey “never”. Skepticism remains about non-profits and employee ownership as a universal fix.

Notifications and Mobile Enshittification

  • Strong resentment of push notifications used for “engagement” instead of actual events, especially from apps that users must keep (banking, rides, health).
  • Platforms nominally restrict marketing notifications, but both first-party and third-party apps routinely abuse or route around those rules.