That's the benefit to the service provider. What's the benefit to the service consumer?
The point at which a user cancels a service is the last chance a service provider has to end the relationship on a positive note. The provider might earn a little more goodwill, and the consumer has a frustration-free experience.
Match.com wanted a whole herd of information when I cancelled. The information I typed in was complete fabrication. As such tactics gain popularity I suspect more people will balk at it, making it a net loss to the service provider.
Being nice to your customers is called win-win.
Also, Match.com isn't a premium service. Real personalized match-making and concierge service (they'll take care of everything involving the first few dates) is a premium service and the pricing starts at $10,000 and only goes up from there. If you want to join up with a premium matchmaker, you need to have a phone call and at least an hour consult. If you want to quit, you need to call in---there's no automation at all.
For another example....
When you hire a corporate lawyer, it takes a phone call to engage their services, or cancel their services. Their goal isn't to make the threshold to complete an action easy, their goal is to be the best representation your money can buy.
If you go to LegalZoom.com for your incorporation services, it ought to be expected that you can cancel with a click of a button.
If I'm paying $10k for a service, I'd especially expect a one-click opt-out or cancellation (assuming that's possible contractually). So the point here is that more I pay the more I expect to interact with a provider on my terms. Think about it. Rich people don't have time to fuck about. If they've an assistant who does this for them then that assistant shouldn't have to divulge personal reasons on his or her employer's behalf.
Well in my experience, you're not forced to divulge anything. You're just asked a couple of questions, and they do try to change their service (within reason) so that you won't leave. But if your heart is set on leaving, and you don't really want to interact... you can just say so, and they'll let you go albeit with a sad sound to their voice.
These companies are not silly, they understand the damage to their brand can be quantified as $x and that the benefit to their bottom line can be quantified as $xx .
Sometimes you do things you know have a negative, because you believe that the positives outweigh it.
Not that I agree with these dark patterns, but I understand why companies choose to implement them.
If, as you acknowledge, these are user-hostile patterns, using them is going to lose the trust of your users, and in the end you will flounder, even if in the short term they provide economic benefits. That's the premise of the article, and yes the companies are silly for employing these dark patterns because they're trading long-term trust in their brand (and thus long-term profits) for short-term economic advantage.
Actually - they often are silly. It might be $x right now, but it turns into $10x later on as the consequences of that initial damage roll on and affect future interactions, recommendations, etc.
It's very easy to quantify the short-term gains being sneaky get you. It's much harder to quantify the longer term consequences.
What evidence do you have for that? Even assuming perfect knowledge, humans are what run these companies, and we all know how irrational those can be. Sure, sure, "the market" will kill them off, sooner or later (maybe; that's also assuming perfect knowledge of consumers, and we know how true that is), but until then, this shadiness should be called out and shunned whenever possible.
The Ladders has a long history of actually being shady, viz.
"Liars at the Ladders" http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/newsletter/oe20090120.htm
Harry Brignull(the author) discusses this in a talk[1] that I found on the dark patterns website(I checked out the website after loving the article).
He makes the argument that sure, many of these tactics might increase your conversion rates or make you some money, at least in the short run. But it also causes you to come off as seedy, to come off as a back alley discount store instead of as a premium brand.
He points out that if you're doing this and you're aware of that and you're ok with it, that's one thing. But plenty of sites might not have realized what they're doing and how it comes off.
I know I personally resent it when sites leave boxes like "sign up for our newsletter" checked or when they have fake download box adds. Making it hard for me to do what I want to do, no matter how you do it, bothers me. It feels like you're the adversary of the site, not a customer or friend.
I believe he talks about it around 12 minutes in but the entire presentation is easily worth watching. He has another one aimed at designers that I plan on watching as soon as I find my headphones(the sound is too low for me to hear it on my MBP).
http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2010/12/17/dark-pattern...