I think there is a fairly bright line in the sand for defining a dark pattern, and the line is between hiding and being open, between being misleading and straightforward, between trying to force someone to do something and seducing them with plain intentions. The later behavior can still really suck, without being dark.
Uber Eats used to have a "$0" option for tipping, but removed it, it's no longer clear if you're going to be giving a tip or not, but if you don't click anything you don't actually give a tip. Is that a dark pattern? I think so, because the UX makes it seem like you have to select something, and that no isn't an option. But it's not hard to argue in the negative, since doing nothing will not take money from you.
I feel pretty strongly that tracking cookies are evil, but the entire ad-tech industry did not think that was a dark-pattern.
I feel pretty strongly that GDPR "accept all or leave site" dialogs are a dark pattern, but the EU is happy with that implementation.
I would also love to point out that "dark-pattern" is still a blossoming terminology, there's no definitive body of law or ethics that describes what is and isn't a dark pattern.
Similar for Google that went the "you can disable cookies in your browser" way, I doubt that will survive a lawsuit in the coming years.
Popup that asks for email address that doesn't have an 'x' (or the 'x' doesn't appear for a while) and the email address field secretly records what the user types and even though they clicked cancel their information was secretly shared: dark pattern
At what point does it not? Pop-ups exist to steal attention. It's abuse. Why do these marketers believe they are entitled to anyone's attention? They are not.
> a business owner can have a very hard time grasping why
Of course. Businesses generally couldn't care less about how much they're abusing their workers or their consumers. The only thing they care about is their profit. Dark patterns are just value extraction mechanisms, it's their abusiveness that makes them dark.
> they can often act like they're simply herding sheep. Users are ephemeral zombies to some, and from that lens, it's totally fine to capture them with sneaky tactics
Yes. It's an inherently abusive and sociopathic view. They don't consider us human beings.
Any amount of coercion and trickery is unethical. This is absolutely clear to me.