Just because something is institutionalized doesn't mean it's right. Especially when that institution is eCommerce, one of the most manipulative industries in software.
I would ammend your description of dark patterns to "Deciept and manipulation by design" to see this through the lens most people do.
Just because something is "a fairly well established part of online eCommerce" doesn't mean it is not a shitty thing to do.
Second - I didn't say it's not shitty.
I wouldn't normally nit pick on terms but this is a conversation about words and their definitions.
Dark Patterns are a deliberate attempt to defraud or deceive through the use of UI.
There are many things that are shitty - country music for one - that are not dark patterns.
Just because you and I both don't like exit intent popups, doesn't make them something that should be criminalised.
Dark Patterns describe activity that either is or should be criminal. The difference is enormous.
This should not be possible, it's a horrible jarring experience every time it happens to me when I click a questionable link and try to go back to the previous page.
Sadly it works too often in relationships as well as ecommerce.
Spoiler: no change is forthcoming.
This is not a totally different thing. Both are examples of coercive/deceptive behavior. That makes them the same sort of thing, but differing by degree.
We'll call it shitty pattern if you dislike dark pattern.
I expect that they refused to implement it because it was a practice they felt was bad ethically rather than because it matched some industry definition.
There's no need for this kind of preface to your comment; you seem to have substantive points to discuss. Please refer to the HN guidelines:
>" When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "
a) What if it was two confirmation popups before you had to leave the page?
b) Three confirmation popups?
c) What if it let you navigate away for about 10 seconds, but then immediately reloaded the last Luxottica page you were on. It only does this once.
d) What if it let you navigate away for about 10 seconds, but then immediately reloaded the last Luxottica page you were on. It does this 2-3 times before it stops redirecting you back and lets you browse freely again.
e) What if it required you to complete a short 5-30 second interactive engagement advertisement-game activity popup before you could leave instead of just clicking "OK I really want to leave".
f) What if it never let you leave unless you quit the browser but you could open other tabs.
g) What if it controlled your browser in such a way that you couldn't quit the browser, and it maximized the window. You can still put other windows on top of it but when you close them, the luxottica store is behind everything until you shut down the whole computer.
h) What if it loaded that page which you can't close every time you started the browser. Only reinstalling the browser makes this stop, until you visit the Luxottica website again and it reloads this functionality again.
i) What if it automatically loaded this page as your desktop background and required downloading a special tool from GitHub to get rid of it.
j) What if it automatically rebranded your entire computer to display Gucci logos throughout the UI. Reinstalling the operating system is the only way to fix it.
Your question is about what's acceptable. My answer is:
1. If the site tricks me (makes me take an action that I would not have taken if the site had not misled me), that's unacceptable. So, roughly any degree of deceit is unacceptable to me.
2. If the site stops me from switching/closing tabs, or changes system settings (like the ones you describe) without me being cognizant of agreeing, that's unacceptable.
Showing 3 popups within a tab when I'm about to close it: that's annoying and douchy, and probably won't work on me, but I won't hate you for it.
From your list, c-j would definitely make me hate you. a and b might be OK if you're presenting me better offers (e.g. 10% off the first time, then 15%, finally 20% off the third time).
That would be harassment. Not even borderline. How would you react if it were to happen on a physical shop?
If the alert says something untrue or misleading (last day of sale, virus on computer, 1000th visitor) that's deceitful.
Plus, it incentivizes having to threaten to cancel a deal to get anywhere near acceptable terms. Fuck that.
But basically off the page as regards to the specific UX patterns under discussion in this thread.
This one:
"when someone tried to leave the site, bring up a popup to offer them a deal or otherwise encourage them not to leave"
In other words: in the Venn diagram of the two buckets - the measure of overlap is quite small.
Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing.
Thinking about Exit Intent and how to optimize for it is a fairly well established part of online eCommerce. I think you made the wrong choice and your boss was probably right to be annoyed with you. It's within their prerogative to decide what user experience they offer to their users. And obviously, it's also yours to quit, but if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself.