alt Hacker NewsConsider the Lean Startup methodology. The darker patterns are where you break down the big picture rationale for the company. You extract metrics that contribute to the company's success (i.e. engagement) and you build a machine that rewards changes to the underlying system that improves those metrics.
If done successfully, you create an unwitting sociopathy, a process that demands the product be as addictive as possible and a culture that is in thrall to the machine that rewards its employees by increasing those metrics. You're no longer thinking about purpose or wondering about what you're doing to your users. You simply realise that if you send this notification at this time, with this colour button, in this place, with this tagline then the machine likes it. Multiple people might contribute a tiny piece of a horrifying and manipulative whole and never quite realise the true horror of the monster they've helped build.
That horror being..? I understand that this is a ruthless quest for engagement by any means, good or bad. For instance ...?
I don't mean to make you do all the work here: I can see a couple of pages from the introduction which mention "variability" and "investment":
> What distinguishes the Hook Model from a plain vanilla feedback loop is the Hook’s ability to create a craving. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don’t create desire. The unsurprising response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door doesn’t drive you to keep opening it again and again. However, add some variability to the mix—suppose a different treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it—and voila, intrigue is created.
So that's "variability". I'm not hugely impressed. "Investment", meanwhile, is when you set preferences or connect to friends, so you feel like you lose out if you stop attending. I can see that these might be foolish ideas. But I can also see that foolish ideas are part of "engaging" with anything - something traditionally wholesome such as a piano, for instance. Imagine I'm a Victorian lady, and I've bought a piano and I invite my friends over for a regular evening of singing art songs, so that's "investment": also we buy new song sheets every time, so there's "variety". I'm totally hooked on this harmless positive thing, am I? Or do I in fact just like it and have free will?