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A comment on I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns. Parent comment

Re:I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns by flerovium on Thursday November 18, 2021 @05:28PM (#29271442)
It's about effort. The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product. It's an exchange. The seller benefits because there is less friction to paying later.

The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent.

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Re:I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns by SilasX on Thursday November 18, 2021 @06:58PM (#29272187)
> The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product.

Yes, and they bear the cost of the users scared away by the extra step, so it’s sort of self limiting.

> The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent.

Yes, that’s valid to call out as a dark pattern, but the parent quoted the article as saying that requiring the credit card at all is a dark pattern or at least shouldn’t be done, so this isn’t a strawman.

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Re:I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns by flerovium on Thursday November 18, 2021 @10:15PM (#29273392)
This is a perfectly valid thing to ask a user; it is part of a common dark pattern, but that does not mean it is itself bad; it is certainly sometimes necessary.
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