[6chars]

I believe this kind of thing is a big contributor to Amazon's hegemony in online shopping. I'm reluctant to order from other sites because there's a whole new set of dark patterns I may fall victim to. At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order, the low stock warnings are somewhat legitimate, etc. I'm not saying Amazon doesn't have its own issues, but at least it's a known quantity.

If it weren't for Amazon's dominance, other sites would be able to compete without resorting to these dark patterns, so this is a self-perpetuating cycle: people only shop on Amazon -> the only other sites that can survive are the ones that engage in deception -> trust in non-Amazon shopping sites decreases -> people only shop on Amazon -> ...

I don't mean to cast these scammy shopping websites as victims. My concern is more about how the legitimate sites that could exist don't because they're crowded out by Amazon (and other big players like Walmart) and the scammy shopping sites this article discusses.

[hirundo]

Amazon earned a lot of loyalty from me with a light pattern. An Xbox they shipped me was stolen off of my porch and they replaced it with no questions. I've purchased other things from random outfits, had them charge the card and then just ghost me. If I could buy anywhere with the same confidence I have in Amazon then Amazon's hold on me would be a lot weaker.

[judge2020]

Another leg up with Amazon is their free returns. I purchased over $200 worth of product from corsair.com with free shipping, but one item was defective (RGB mousepad regularly kills my entire USB stack every few hours - it's either defective or incompatible with my motherboard) and the cost to return it from Georgia -> California via USPS for RMA/refund is nearly a third of the item's price since Corsair doesn't pay for return shipping.

[FalconSensei]

Another thing I like with Amazon is that you can easily know the exact date you have to return something. With Best Buy for example, they have a FAQ page by category, but I couldn't find nothing regarding turntables, for example. Way easier on Amazon - at least after you order - just going to your order page and seeing the return deadline there.

[jjcon]

> a light pattern

These terms are getting a bit out of hand XD

[scollet]

> when developers follow the way of the Jedi

[m463]

On the other hand, aren't they legally obligated to do so?

[detaro]

Even if they are, there is a difference between a vendor that without any issue promptly does so, and one that makes it difficult.

[ieeamo]

Amazon is one of the scammy shopping sites this articles discusses - it’s listed in the dataset.

I’d wager that many of the dark patterns persist because Amazon use them, making their justification inside smaller companies easier.

[iujjkfjdkkdkf]

(My experience is with amazon.ca) Amazon is filled with the kinds of deception that the article discusses.

I dont have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime.

I always buy enough to get free shipping (which they show with a big banner), but it always defaults to paid shipping, that often needs to be removed item by item.

More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before.

They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can.

I could go on, but the point is I agree with you entirely.

[marcinzm]

As of 2012 Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical books in the UK. I suspect that hasn't changed since then. So I'd argue defaulting to kindle is the right product decision as it's the option the majority of users want.

Amazon Prime on the other hand is definitely a dark pattern.

[iujjkfjdkkdkf]

Amazon has 15 years of shopping history from me that includes multiple physical books each month and 0 kindle purchases. Its possible they don't consider that and default to kindle for everyone, but they at least have the info to know that kindle versions are not what I'm after.

[_jal]

Exactly so.

Amazon is incredibly good at converting consumer surveillance data in to money. They could easily default this (and many other things) to sensible per-user values. Given their competence and attention to detail, the reasonable guess here is that playing dumb on this default pays better than doing right by the user.

[FalconSensei]

Maybe what's happening is: if you have a Kindle (you bough it form Amazon - or you bought kindle books on your account), they assume is likely you want a kindle version. If you don't have a Kindle, they want to show you how cheaper the Kindle version is, and maybe you will end up buying a Kindle.

[devlopr]

Could Amazon be selling more kindle ebooks because of the policy that selects it as a default?

At this point you couldn't switch back.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They sell more e-books because the publishing industry colluded to jack up the price of paperbacks so that $10 e-books look like a bargain. I'm not paying $15 for a physical book that would have been $5 15 years ago. Their production overhead has been dramatically lowered by digital distribution and I'm expected to pay more?

[yabudemada]

I think it's the convenience for both buyers and sellers. If readers want the book "now" they get the kindle version; if they want it later they get the physical copy. However, Kindle in general is a dark pattern: it forces users to be locked into their product ecosystem.

[hansvm]

> I don't have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime.

Back when I was still in college they offered a "6 month trial" of Prime Student. I agreed, made a mental note to cancel it in 5 months, and was shocked to find the next day that my card had been charged. There weren't any purchase screens, any terms to agree to, or anything to indicate that the trial they were peddling was in fact just an ordinary Prime Student subscription which would then renew in 6 months.

[morsch]

They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can.

I mean, it says Sold by X and Fulfilled by Amazon right under the add to basket/buy buttons. It's repeated on the order summary. I'm aware people keep missing this, but I don't really get it.

[joshuak]

If you are not buying from Amazon, then nothing on the entire page should imply that you are.

Why is this not obvious to us? It wasn't to me either. There has got to be some cognitive bias at play here to lead to our acceptance of inverted principles like this. The framing of the problem is completely inverted, yet we're pretty much okay with that.

If it's not clear what I'm talking about here's another example:

"Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?"

This is also a reframing that presumes I do not have privacy and therefore bare the burden to prove I need it. People accept this frame and attempt to argue it directly all the time, when they should really just say "Why do you need to take it?" The burden of proof is on the taker.

Neither the buyer nor the seller should be so accepting of Amazon's attempt to obfuscate the actual parties involved in the sale. Amazon is just the payment processor and possibly providing storage and shipping services.

A real world analogy would be if every store that accepts VISA looked like a VISA store.

[throwawayboise]

I'd wager that a lot of people don't know what that means, as opposed to:

You are buying this from X. Amazon is only processing the payment.

And there's probably a way to word that even more clearly...

[thaumasiotes]

> More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before.

This can't really be something Amazon is intentionally trying to trick you into doing. There's no way for you not to notice that it happened, and you can just return the kindle book.

[judge2020]

> that often needs to be removed item by item.

In general you just need to change it for each shipment - if multiple items are grouped together [because they're all at the same warehouse) then changing one shipment will change the shipping speed of all items within it. They probably should be defaulting to free shipping when it's available, though.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They don't always default to the cheapest option. This happens more often when they're trying to steer you into selecting a Prime subscription.

[judge2020]

I meant 'should' as in 'this is how it should be, but isn't currently', I fully agree with you.

[6chars]

I'm not saying they aren't. What I'm trying to get across is that people are more used to and, therefore, inured to their dark patterns. There's a learning curve for navigating any website's dark patterns, so I'm more comfortable using a site whose dark patterns I believe I can recognize and avoid than one I haven't used before and am consequently more likely to be victimized by.

I'm definitely overestimating my own ability to avoid Amazon's scammy tactics. I, like most people, am reluctant to admit that I'm vulnerable to manipulation by things like these dark patterns (and ads, PR, etc.). But since I'm talking about my subjective feelings towards the websites, I think how good I _feel_ I am is relevant.

I totally agree with everything you've said, but just want to clarify my initial comment. I'm not trying to let Amazon off the hook, though they are less problematic than almost all of the other examples in the article.

[tyingq]

One example is their "subscriptions" to products. It's very easy to accidentally order a recurring subscription to a shipped physical product, rather than just a one-time purchase.

[jimmaswell]

I just looked and subscriptions are very clearly labeled every step of the way, not even an attempt to be tricky that I can see.

[tyingq]

It's possible they've changed it since I last accidentally did that, or perhaps I'm just dense :)

[notdang]

I usually take advantage of this to lower the price by 10% and then cancel the subscription.

[marcinzm]

It's listed ONCE in the dataset due to a product option defaulting to the most expensive version. A very minor dark pattern I'd argue.

[ieeamo]

Why the downvote? Amazon has consistently been flagged for excessive use of Dark patterns, e.g. [1].

[1] https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/

[m463]

that is not accurate. Amazon is brimming with dark patterns.

They walk the line between selling to customers and selling customers.

Over time, there are more and more "sponsored" results occluding and confusing my search results.

There are now warranty upsell screens on just about every purchase ("would you like coverage on your $5 part?")

They don't offer you the lowest cost on an item, you really have to drill down into all the offers to check.

If you block part of their site, things don't work - but if you sign in, all is well.

Can you delete your browsing history? Well, no. You can "hide" your browsing history but "removing items from view".

Search results are peppered with nonsensical results - that you searched for/bought before. I'm pretty sure this is timed with memory decay.

for example if 3 months ago you searched for dishes. Today when you search for computer parts, there might be a dish thrown into the results.

They talk about "free shipping" everywhere, but even if your cart is $500, you are opted-into non-free shipping and must manually select free shipping.

They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently.

[jonplackett]

> They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all the info conveniently.

I think this was introduced in response to google scraping the data from your gmail. But I'll also add to the list of darkness:

Different prices on Alexa VS actually checking the site.

On Alexa, massively prioritising their own brands VS others. (check out Scott Galloway's tests)

They're also a case study on darkpatterns.org for how difficult it is to cancel.

[DesiLurker]

I have audible subscription and can say it is the definition of dark pattern if you have unused credits. either keep buying credits with the hope of someday using them or cancel and lose them all.

[yarcob]

Here in Austria/Germany I see these dark patterns only from Amazon. They always try to get you to subscribe to prime, they mislead you with delivery times (my girlfriend has Prime and the website shows LONGER delivery times for her. Same item, browser signed into my account without Prime: shorter delivery time)

I want to support the local economy, so unless an item is only available on Amazon, I try to avoid buying from them. I've ordered from lots of different online stores in the past few years, and in my experience these dark patters are pretty rare.

[helmholtz]

Exactly. For all of that bullshit, plus Bezos' absolutely despicable conduct during Covid, I deleted my Amazon account and haven't looked back. Music gear? Thomann. Electronics? Digitec or Rakuten. And..., er, I'm struggling to think what Amazon was good for anyway. But regardless, unknown stuff? shopping.google.com

Honestly, of the top-x tech companies, Amazon is probably one of the easiest to quit, perhaps after Netflix.

ETA: And oh yeah. Books? Once again, search on shopping.google.com and buy from some small vendor.

[Nextgrid]

> other sites would be able to compete without resorting to these dark patterns

Is there any evidence that e-commerce sites were any less scummy before Amazon started competing?

[6chars]

I don't have any evidence to back this up, but in my recollection, that is the case. But it's hard to even compare e-commerce now to back before Amazon, when the web was much more niche and a lot of dark patterns weren't even technically possible yet.

It would be interesting to see where e-commerce would be today if a company as dominant as Amazon never came about. My hypothesis is that people would have more trust in a random shopping site they click on when Googling a product they want to buy, but it's impossible to test that.

[mlthoughts2018]

Similar for platforms that let you build ecommerce sites, like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc. They might be cookie cutter and usually over-priced for the level of hosting you get and the poorness of the wysiwyg site editing experience, but they solve a big problem of letting you get up and running with a trustworthy site fast.

It’s interesting though because there still are plenty of scam sites hosted by those platforms, plenty of dark patterns on Amazon too.

[timoth3y]

> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order

You are better at online shopping than I am.

Amazon has tricked me into signing up for Prime twice. First time it was disguised as a shipping option. The second time I'm not sure exactly how they did it.

[NicoJuicy]

> At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order

Well, unsubscribing Amazon videos is a dark pattern too. Not as bad as Adobe, but still.