[dhimes]

When I click on a button that says effectively "Purchase" or "Buy Now" and I instead get a page that says "Sign up to stay informed" the page has lied to me.

I fully understand that the design pattern solves a difficult problem that we all have: how to know if someone would really be willing to buy your product. Because if you ask, many people will say they would buy it, but when it comes time to pull out their credit card they don't do it.

But it's still tricking the customer into doing something he or she wouldn't ordinarily do if they had known what the button really did.