Those are dark patterns for sure. I don’t know how big companies can still pull that in 2026
People were eased into a defeatist attitude over time. Easily done when everyone's trying to achieve it.
Management and PM kung fu:
- Here's the KPI - Team can't figure out another way to boost KPI - Team implements dark pattern
The root problem is there are seemingly no user experience quality KPIs on the development side to counterbalance revenue / usage / adoption ones.
People were eased into a defeatist attitude over time. Easily done when everyone's trying to achieve it.
Management and PM kung fu:
System working as pathologically-intended.The root problem is there are seemingly no user experience quality KPIs on the development side to counterbalance revenue / usage / adoption ones.