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I believe this kind of thing is a big contributor to Amazon's hegemony in online shopping. I'm reluctant to order from other sites because there's a whole new s

by 6chars 6y ago

I believe this kind of thing is a big contributor to Amazon's hegemony in online shopping. I'm reluctant to order from other sites because there's a whole new set of dark patterns I may fall victim to. At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order, the low stock warnings are somewhat legitimate, etc. I'm not saying Amazon doesn't have its own issues, but at least it's a known quantity. If it weren't for Amazon's dominance, other sites would be able to compete without resorting to these dark patterns, so this is a self-perpetuating cycle: people only shop on Amazon -> the only other sites that can survive are the ones that engage in deception -> trust in non-Amazon shopping sites decreases -> people only shop on Amazon -> ... I don't mean to cast these scammy shopping websites as victims. My concern is more about how the legitimate sites that could exist don't because they're crowded out by Amazon (and other big players like Walmart) and the scammy shopping sites this article discusses.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Similar for platforms that let you build ecommerce sites, like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc. They might be cookie cutter and usually over-priced for the level of hosting you get and the poorness of the wysiwyg site editing experience, but they solve a big problem of letting you get up and running with a trustworthy site fast. It’s interesting though because there still are plenty of scam sites hosted by those platforms, plenty of dark patterns on Amazon too.
Nextgrid 6y ago
> other sites would be able to compete without resorting to these dark patterns Is there any evidence that e-commerce sites were any less scummy before Amazon started competing?
- 6chars 6y ago
  I don't have any evidence to back this up, but in my recollection, that is the case. But it's hard to even compare e-commerce now to back before Amazon, when the web was much more niche and a lot of dark patterns weren't even technically possible yet. It would be interesting to see where e-commerce would be today if a company as dominant as Amazon never came about. My hypothesis is that people would have more trust in a random shopping site they click on when Googling a product they want to buy, but it's impossible to test that.
ieeamo 6y ago
Amazon is one of the scammy shopping sites this articles discusses - it’s listed in the dataset. I’d wager that many of the dark patterns persist because Amazon use them, making their justification inside smaller companies easier.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  It's listed ONCE in the dataset due to a product option defaulting to the most expensive version. A very minor dark pattern I'd argue.
  - ieeamo 6y ago
    Why the downvote? Amazon has consistently been flagged for excessive use of Dark patterns, e.g. [1]. [1] https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/ https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
  (My experience is with amazon.ca) Amazon is filled with the kinds of deception that the article discusses. I dont have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime. I always buy enough to get free shipping (which they show with a big banner), but it always defaults to paid shipping, that often needs to be removed item by item. More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before. They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can. I could go on, but the point is I agree with you entirely.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    As of 2012 Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical books in the UK. I suspect that hasn't changed since then. So I'd argue defaulting to kindle is the right product decision as it's the option the majority of users want. Amazon Prime on the other hand is definitely a dark pattern.
    - 6y ago
hirundo 6y ago
Amazon earned a lot of loyalty from me with a light pattern. An Xbox they shipped me was stolen off of my porch and they replaced it with no questions. I've purchased other things from random outfits, had them charge the card and then just ghost me. If I could buy anywhere with the same confidence I have in Amazon then Amazon's hold on me would be a lot weaker.
- jjcon 6y ago
  > a light pattern These terms are getting a bit out of hand XD
  - scollet 6y ago
    > when developers follow the way of the Jedi
- judge2020 6y ago
  Another leg up with Amazon is their free returns. I purchased over $200 worth of product from corsair.com with free shipping, but one item was defective (RGB mousepad regularly kills my entire USB stack every few hours - it's either defective or incompatible with my motherboard) and the cost to return it from Georgia -> California via USPS for RMA/refund is nearly a third of the item's price since Corsair doesn't pay for return shipping.
- m463 6y ago
  On the other hand, aren't they legally obligated to do so?
  - detaro 6y ago
    Even if they are, there is a difference between a vendor that without any issue promptly does so, and one that makes it difficult.
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  Another thing I like with Amazon is that you can easily know the exact date you have to return something. With Best Buy for example, they have a FAQ page by category, but I couldn't find nothing regarding turntables, for example. Way easier on Amazon - at least after you order - just going to your order page and seeing the return deadline there.
m463 6y ago
that is not accurate. Amazon is brimming with dark patterns. They walk the line between selling to customers and selling customers. Over time, there are more and more "sponsored" results occluding and confusing my search results. There are now warranty upsell screens on just about every purchase ("would you like coverage on your $5 part?") They don't offer you the lowest cost on an item, you really have to drill down into all the offers to check. If you block part of their site, things don't work - but if you sign in, all is well. Can you delete your browsing history? Well, no. You can "hide" your browsing history but "removing items from view". Search results are peppered with nonsensical results - that you searched for/bought before. I'm pretty sure this is timed with memory decay. for example if 3 months ago you searched for dishes. Today when you search for computer parts, there might be a dish thrown into the results. They talk about "free shipping" everywhere, but even if your cart is $500, you are opted-into non-free shipping and must manually select free shipping. They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  > They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently. I think this was introduced in response to google scraping the data from your gmail. But I'll also add to the list of darkness: Different prices on Alexa VS actually checking the site. On Alexa, massively prioritising their own brands VS others. (check out Scott Galloway's tests) They're also a case study on darkpatterns.org for how difficult it is to cancel.
  - DesiLurker 6y ago
    I have audible subscription and can say it is the definition of dark pattern if you have unused credits. either keep buying credits with the hope of someday using them or cancel and lose them all.
yarcob 6y ago
Here in Austria/Germany I see these dark patterns only from Amazon. They always try to get you to subscribe to prime, they mislead you with delivery times (my girlfriend has Prime and the website shows LONGER delivery times for her. Same item, browser signed into my account without Prime: shorter delivery time) I want to support the local economy, so unless an item is only available on Amazon, I try to avoid buying from them. I've ordered from lots of different online stores in the past few years, and in my experience these dark patters are pretty rare.
- helmholtz 6y ago
  Exactly. For all of that bullshit, plus Bezos' absolutely despicable conduct during Covid, I deleted my Amazon account and haven't looked back. Music gear? Thomann. Electronics? Digitec or Rakuten. And..., er, I'm struggling to think what Amazon was good for anyway. But regardless, unknown stuff? shopping.google.com Honestly, of the top-x tech companies, Amazon is probably one of the easiest to quit, perhaps after Netflix. ETA: And oh yeah. Books? Once again, search on shopping.google.com and buy from some small vendor.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order Well, unsubscribing Amazon videos is a dark pattern too. Not as bad as Adobe, but still.
timoth3y 6y ago
> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order You are better at online shopping than I am. Amazon has tricked me into signing up for Prime twice. First time it was disguised as a shipping option. The second time I'm not sure exactly how they did it.

by 6chars 6y ago

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

Similar for platforms that let you build ecommerce sites, like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc. They might be cookie cutter and usually over-priced for the level of hosting you get and the poorness of the wysiwyg site editing experience, but they solve a big problem of letting you get up and running with a trustworthy site fast. It’s interesting though because there still are plenty of scam sites hosted by those platforms, plenty of dark patterns on Amazon too.

Nextgrid 6y ago

> other sites would be able to compete without resorting to these dark patterns Is there any evidence that e-commerce sites were any less scummy before Amazon started competing?

6chars 6y ago
I don't have any evidence to back this up, but in my recollection, that is the case. But it's hard to even compare e-commerce now to back before Amazon, when the web was much more niche and a lot of dark patterns weren't even technically possible yet. It would be interesting to see where e-commerce would be today if a company as dominant as Amazon never came about. My hypothesis is that people would have more trust in a random shopping site they click on when Googling a product they want to buy, but it's impossible to test that.

ieeamo 6y ago

Amazon is one of the scammy shopping sites this articles discusses - it’s listed in the dataset. I’d wager that many of the dark patterns persist because Amazon use them, making their justification inside smaller companies easier.

marcinzm 6y ago
It's listed ONCE in the dataset due to a product option defaulting to the most expensive version. A very minor dark pattern I'd argue.
- ieeamo 6y ago
  Why the downvote? Amazon has consistently been flagged for excessive use of Dark patterns, e.g. [1]. [1] https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/ https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/
iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
(My experience is with amazon.ca) Amazon is filled with the kinds of deception that the article discusses. I dont have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime. I always buy enough to get free shipping (which they show with a big banner), but it always defaults to paid shipping, that often needs to be removed item by item. More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before. They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can. I could go on, but the point is I agree with you entirely.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  As of 2012 Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical books in the UK. I suspect that hasn't changed since then. So I'd argue defaulting to kindle is the right product decision as it's the option the majority of users want. Amazon Prime on the other hand is definitely a dark pattern.
  - 6y ago

hirundo 6y ago

Amazon earned a lot of loyalty from me with a light pattern. An Xbox they shipped me was stolen off of my porch and they replaced it with no questions. I've purchased other things from random outfits, had them charge the card and then just ghost me. If I could buy anywhere with the same confidence I have in Amazon then Amazon's hold on me would be a lot weaker.

jjcon 6y ago
> a light pattern These terms are getting a bit out of hand XD
- scollet 6y ago
  > when developers follow the way of the Jedi
judge2020 6y ago
Another leg up with Amazon is their free returns. I purchased over $200 worth of product from corsair.com with free shipping, but one item was defective (RGB mousepad regularly kills my entire USB stack every few hours - it's either defective or incompatible with my motherboard) and the cost to return it from Georgia -> California via USPS for RMA/refund is nearly a third of the item's price since Corsair doesn't pay for return shipping.
m463 6y ago
On the other hand, aren't they legally obligated to do so?
- detaro 6y ago
  Even if they are, there is a difference between a vendor that without any issue promptly does so, and one that makes it difficult.
FalconSensei 6y ago
Another thing I like with Amazon is that you can easily know the exact date you have to return something. With Best Buy for example, they have a FAQ page by category, but I couldn't find nothing regarding turntables, for example. Way easier on Amazon - at least after you order - just going to your order page and seeing the return deadline there.

m463 6y ago

that is not accurate. Amazon is brimming with dark patterns. They walk the line between selling to customers and selling customers. Over time, there are more and more "sponsored" results occluding and confusing my search results. There are now warranty upsell screens on just about every purchase ("would you like coverage on your $5 part?") They don't offer you the lowest cost on an item, you really have to drill down into all the offers to check. If you block part of their site, things don't work - but if you sign in, all is well. Can you delete your browsing history? Well, no. You can "hide" your browsing history but "removing items from view". Search results are peppered with nonsensical results - that you searched for/bought before. I'm pretty sure this is timed with memory decay. for example if 3 months ago you searched for dishes. Today when you search for computer parts, there might be a dish thrown into the results. They talk about "free shipping" everywhere, but even if your cart is $500, you are opted-into non-free shipping and must manually select free shipping. They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently.

jonplackett 6y ago
> They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently. I think this was introduced in response to google scraping the data from your gmail. But I'll also add to the list of darkness: Different prices on Alexa VS actually checking the site. On Alexa, massively prioritising their own brands VS others. (check out Scott Galloway's tests) They're also a case study on darkpatterns.org for how difficult it is to cancel.
- DesiLurker 6y ago
  I have audible subscription and can say it is the definition of dark pattern if you have unused credits. either keep buying credits with the hope of someday using them or cancel and lose them all.

yarcob 6y ago

Here in Austria/Germany I see these dark patterns only from Amazon. They always try to get you to subscribe to prime, they mislead you with delivery times (my girlfriend has Prime and the website shows LONGER delivery times for her. Same item, browser signed into my account without Prime: shorter delivery time) I want to support the local economy, so unless an item is only available on Amazon, I try to avoid buying from them. I've ordered from lots of different online stores in the past few years, and in my experience these dark patters are pretty rare.

helmholtz 6y ago
Exactly. For all of that bullshit, plus Bezos' absolutely despicable conduct during Covid, I deleted my Amazon account and haven't looked back. Music gear? Thomann. Electronics? Digitec or Rakuten. And..., er, I'm struggling to think what Amazon was good for anyway. But regardless, unknown stuff? shopping.google.com Honestly, of the top-x tech companies, Amazon is probably one of the easiest to quit, perhaps after Netflix. ETA: And oh yeah. Books? Once again, search on shopping.google.com and buy from some small vendor.

NicoJuicy 6y ago

> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order Well, unsubscribing Amazon videos is a dark pattern too. Not as bad as Adobe, but still.

timoth3y 6y ago

> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order You are better at online shopping than I am. Amazon has tricked me into signing up for Prime twice. First time it was disguised as a shipping option. The second time I'm not sure exactly how they did it.