[meltedcapacitor]

It's sort of toxic socially though as devs write dark patterns during working hours and dark pattern blockers in hobby time, for other nerds to use. So dev caste gets usable web and profits from antisocial behaviour, while low non-dev castes are left to drown in the swamp.

[jeroenhd]

You assume the dark patterns and the dark pattern blockers are written by the same people. I, for one, have probably written shitty code and badly designed UI in the past, but I've always refused to become a sleazy salesman, even back when I was doing customer support. I use element blocking all the time but I'm not going to put effort into these shitty websites and I doubt most devs will either. I'm also not installing blocking extensions for every website I visit.

Luckily, even non-technical people are downloading browsers with adblockers that come prepopulated with all kinds of filters, not just basic ads anymore. Opera has run a surprisingly effective ad campaign, for example. All it takes is for one of these browsers to take a more aggressive stance against these dark patterns. Brave already comes with a whole bunch of "annoyance" filters ready to be enabled.

I've told "normal" people about how bad Booking.com is, showed them how they manipulated you, but those people either didn't see the problem ("everyone is trying to manipulate you so what") or don't want to find another website. As long as the government won't step in, and consumers won't stop falling for these tricks, nothing will change. The technical problem is solved, but greedy developers and developers without morals (or the freedom to refuse) need to be fought by other means.

The problem is, nobody cares except for a bunch of ad blocking nerds.

[Kwpolska]

You don’t need to be from the “dev caste” to install an ad blocker or the Booking.com De-Stresser extension described in the post.

[Loocid]

I think you're underestimating how tech illiterate much of the population is. A quick Google suggests the percentage of people using an adblocker of any kind is only 30-40%. I would consider that the absolutely minimum of web viewing tech literacy.

[janalsncm]

The point remains though that the technical capabilities necessary to install chrome extensions and the technical capabilities required to program dark patterns are vastly different. No one is getting hired on their ability to do the former.

The asymmetry is that one small group of web devs can roll out a change to millions of users whose ability and patience to combat those dark patterns will vary.

[userbinator]

A quick Google suggests the percentage of people using an adblocker of any kind is only 30-40%

That's around 10-20x higher than I think it is in practice. I suspect the majority of users have naturally developed a "mental adblock" instead from all the visual overload, based on how they will completely ignore non-ad information that isn't presented in an attention-getting-enough manner. I've watched others search for information on the Internet without an adblocker and have been astonished at how all the distractions on the pages don't seem to faze them at all, while I could barely keep my eyes on the screen.