This reminds me of a gag voting simulation website from the early 2000s when BushJr was running for president against Al Gore. The (maybe flash?) game simulated voting, but when you tried to click, the buttons would “run away” from the cursor, or change size to avoid being clicked… dark patterns… always fun to “play against”.
More recently though, I must say, YouTube has really jumped the shark in terms of perfecting their dark patterns/algo stickiness. I can’t even go to the site without immediately forgetting my original intent.
Also see The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror XIX, where Homer tries to vote for Obama using an electronic voting machine:
https://youtu.be/47QZ6PoHl44
Yesterday I scrolled down the front page of my Youtube, and saw the "shorts" shelf. I clicked "Show me fewer shorts" like I have a hundred other times.
I did something else for a few minutes, then I scrolled down another page or so.
The shorts were right there again.
Google is evil. Anyone still working for them is enabling this.
i'm old too and remember that, i believe it was javascript, not flash