[thraway123412]

That was not intended to be read as a literal quote or an attempt to make it appear as if you said something you didn't. That's a fairly common way of picking a message apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet. Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used. I wish we had a better notation for this. I'm sorry to have caused confusion.

Anyway, the point was just to express my disappointment in that people keep supporting a company even after complaining about their horrible dark patterns. And I don't really mean to single you out personally, it's everywhere: people complain and then keep using and rewarding the service(s) they complain about. IME this rarely leads to them becoming better over time, they just get worse over time because they can get away with it. Abuse users until the very end. It seems to work, we have so many users and more are rolling in!

Of course if you're actually giving them feedback, all the power to you. I respect your opinion too.

To give you an idea where I stand, a few days ago I was thinking of buying a keyboard for my workshop PC. I have a couple Planck EZs and they're decent keyboards. So I went over to the ZSA site, started reading about their new keyboard (Moonlander), and... MODAL POPUP ADVERTISING A MAGAZINE[1]! Now I remember the time when browsers started adding popup blockers built-in, and everyone (except scummy advertisers) rejoiced. So I find it disturbing, disgusting, and extremely disrespectful to bring back popups in the form of modals. I kinda try to put my money where my mouth is, so my reaction was to unsubscribe their magazine (the way they presented it when I bought my plancks wasn't so bad) and take my shopping elsewhere.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/9bCDNMl.png

[brigandish]

> That's a fairly common way of picking a message apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet. Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used.

Among people who can’t make their point with an accurate representation of someone else’s words. All the descriptive words for this behaviour are negative, for good reason. I suspect you know this, hence the throwaway account.

> I wish we had a better notation for this.

The better notation for this is not to do it, that’s why there is no notation for it.

> I'm sorry to have caused confusion.

I’m not sure HN is for you. Don’t do this again if you’re really sorry.

[brigandish]

HN obviously isn’t for them.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Understood.

I believe that, as a software developer, I am constantly encountering the classic "Do $20,000 worth of work for me for free." If I refuse, it can sometimes get quite unpleasant.

As it so happens, I actually do a great deal of free software. The users can sometimes be a bit on the "knucklehead" side, but they usually respect my boundaries.

The people that don't, tend to be business owners. I sort of expect it, as a good business owner is always looking for every advantage they can. I can sometimes get rather peeved by their attitudes. Around these parts, business owners tend to be especially aggressive, and NY is known for a hyper-aggressive environment and culture.

The people that wrote the app do a valuable service. They trained up a fairly effective neural network. The apps are...OK. Not outstanding, but OK. They do get their primary function done pretty effectively. That took time and skill.

They want to be paid, and I don't begrudge them. I believe that supporting paid software is a moral imperative for me. I won't go about laying my values on other people, but I choose to have this attitude, and I like to follow it with action.

[thraway123412]

Sure. I think we mostly stand on the same line here.

I just tend to take hard stance against anything I find user hostile. Nagging, dark patterns, exploiting addictions, attempts at leeching personal information, lock-in, etcetra will quickly put you on my no buy list.

I think those things are evil at worst and a waste of time and resources (in a global, zero-sum way) at best, and long term we'd be better off if everyone rejected such behavior and put their money towards business that focuses solely on providing superb service without the abuse. Unfortunately these abusive practices tend to work as far as profit is concerned.. it's like tragedy of the commons, in a way.

I want to get paid too, and live in a nicer world.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Well, I did send them feedback, and pointed at the OP.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

And got a response that made absolutely no sense at all, so I suspect their CRM is staffed by ‘bots.

[noxToken]

For the record, there is a way to highlight changes. An ellipses denotes that material was left out. Brackets denote that something was changed. In either case, the intent should never be to alter what was said. Using yours as an example:

> That was not intended to be read as a literal quote...[It was intended to] paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used. I wish we had a better notation for this. I'm sorry to have caused confusion.

[0]: https://writingcommons.org/article/inserting-or-altering-wor...