<story><title>Confirmshaming</title><url>http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acangiano</author><text>&amp;gt;  I&amp;#x27;m more concerned with the fact that I can&amp;#x27;t go to any web page these days without getting one of these pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;People use these pop-ups (Landing Pages, Optinmonster, etc) because they are extremely effective at capturing emails. Your average programmer or techie on HN is horrified when prompted to sign up via a pop-up, but many regular users will just comply. The site has now converted a random passer-by, into someone who might continue to receive new content (and marketing material) in the future. Nothing comes even close to the ROI that you get from people subscribing to your mailing list. Note that I&amp;#x27;m not talking about whether this is right or wrong, just that it&amp;#x27;s done for a very good reason. Would I put a pop-up form on a programming blog? Obviously no. Know your audience. But on a regular site? Not doing so is literally leaving money on the table. And that&amp;#x27;s why they are ubiquitous. When you don&amp;#x27;t see one it&amp;#x27;s often either an ethical choice (the site owner decided to maximize user experience, not profit) or lack of knowledge of how effective these pop-ups are.</text></item><item><author>alttab</author><text>If anything, I get a little chuckle when I see this stuff. I&amp;#x27;m sure we&amp;#x27;ve all been there trying to make things clearer for the user.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;m more concerned with the fact that I can&amp;#x27;t go to any web page these days without getting one of these pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s even worse when the pop-up comes 20 seconds later since loading all of the Javascript takes a while on mobile - and then shows up halfway down the page.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s even worse when being scrolled down the page prevents the widget from rendering correctly.&lt;p&gt;The internet is quickly becoming a ghetto, and other parts of the internet (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit) are getting incrementally controlled and censored.&lt;p&gt;... Sigh ...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gedrap</author><text>Exactly.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Obviously no. Know your audience. But on a regular site? Not doing so is literally leaving money on the table. And that&amp;#x27;s why they are ubiquitous.&lt;p&gt;This.&lt;p&gt;Most (all?) of the mentioned ones are run by companies, not individuals who are not seeking any profit or anything. In terms of ethics, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t even call it unethical or a dark pattern. Some sneaky checkbox to receive spam is bad. Sneaky checkbox for addon when purchasing is horribly bad. But pop up with email field? Nope. Calling it ethical decision is a stretch. Worst case scenario - you close the tab and move on with your life. If anyone loses then it&amp;#x27;s the business, not you.&lt;p&gt;At the end, it&amp;#x27;s a business decision whether it&amp;#x27;s worth annoying some users in order to extract more value later from a fraction of them and it&amp;#x27;s the users choice to accept or not. It&amp;#x27;s a personal choice, to each their own.&lt;p&gt;You think the UX is so crap because of it and surely something better can be done? Take it as a business opportunity!</text></comment>
<story><title>Confirmshaming</title><url>http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acangiano</author><text>&amp;gt;  I&amp;#x27;m more concerned with the fact that I can&amp;#x27;t go to any web page these days without getting one of these pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;People use these pop-ups (Landing Pages, Optinmonster, etc) because they are extremely effective at capturing emails. Your average programmer or techie on HN is horrified when prompted to sign up via a pop-up, but many regular users will just comply. The site has now converted a random passer-by, into someone who might continue to receive new content (and marketing material) in the future. Nothing comes even close to the ROI that you get from people subscribing to your mailing list. Note that I&amp;#x27;m not talking about whether this is right or wrong, just that it&amp;#x27;s done for a very good reason. Would I put a pop-up form on a programming blog? Obviously no. Know your audience. But on a regular site? Not doing so is literally leaving money on the table. And that&amp;#x27;s why they are ubiquitous. When you don&amp;#x27;t see one it&amp;#x27;s often either an ethical choice (the site owner decided to maximize user experience, not profit) or lack of knowledge of how effective these pop-ups are.</text></item><item><author>alttab</author><text>If anything, I get a little chuckle when I see this stuff. I&amp;#x27;m sure we&amp;#x27;ve all been there trying to make things clearer for the user.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;m more concerned with the fact that I can&amp;#x27;t go to any web page these days without getting one of these pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s even worse when the pop-up comes 20 seconds later since loading all of the Javascript takes a while on mobile - and then shows up halfway down the page.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s even worse when being scrolled down the page prevents the widget from rendering correctly.&lt;p&gt;The internet is quickly becoming a ghetto, and other parts of the internet (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit) are getting incrementally controlled and censored.&lt;p&gt;... Sigh ...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xiaoma</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Your average programmer or techie on HN is horrified when prompted to sign up via a pop-up, but many regular users will just comply.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;... especially if you shame them into it!</text></comment>