132 - Dark Patterns

The value of any application, platform, or service, is directly and inversely proportionate to the amount of time it requires to achieve any desired outcome. However, most platforms and applications are designed almost exclusively around "Dark Patterns" of UX/UI to maximize, rather than minimize, the time they require.

This is largely thanks to the "attention economy" and the ad revenue business model it is built upon. Each platform built on that business model seeks to maximize the time investment of their users, as that maximizes the one factor they truly care about, ad revenue.

The number of users, quality of content, misinformation flow, credibility, and a host of other factors are all secondary. This can easily be observed in platforms like Twitter/X, where credibility has lowered the bar for rock bottom, on Elon's journey to the center of the Earth.

At an intellectual level and logical level, people understand the value of time, recalling such phrases as "Time is money.", and "Lost time is never found again.", both quotes credited to Benjamin Franklin. However, cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance allow the wasting of time to be ignored under certain conditions, which "Dark Patterns" are known to exploit.

A few noteworthy examples of time-wasting-maximizers have each carved monumental markets for themselves, built on those Dark Patterns:

  • Twitter/X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.: Places where people go to consume large quantities of often trivial content.

  • Mobile Games: Where every dark pattern yet discovered is both utilized and gamified, all to maximize screen time, encouraging in-game purchases while also extracting steady income from advertising banners.

  • Dating Apps: The "Swipe"-based mechanism of the most popular dating platforms is designed to waste the maximum amount of time possible, while also exploiting a Slot Machine type of Dark Pattern.

  • Emerging AI services: A new, or newly popular class of AI services has also been emerging since 2023, where AI chatbots will attempt to maximize the amount of a user's time they can consume. This is only true of models that are paid based on usage, rather than per month, but companies like Microsoft and Google are already attempting to apply these technologies to further increase ad revenue and automatically engage in manipulation tactics.

Of course, these bad actor tactics built on the ad revenue business model will collapse along with that model following a viable alternative emerging. That day may come much sooner than any of those platforms are prepared for.

How much time have you wasted this week?