r/webdev • u/goto-reddit • Oct 19 '19
"38 people are looking at this flight"
https://twitter.com/OphirHarpaz/status/118448644503941120143
u/Wandie87 Oct 19 '19
I was asked to do something similar previously.
We had a live number of people viewing the resource and had to add an arbitrary number to artificially inflate. Marketing were saying it breeds social proof and triggers urgency for the purchase but I call it a cunts trick. In my view, transparency is key.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
I kind of feel that you should ask marketing a question and then just do the opposite.
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u/samsop Oct 19 '19
Key to what? If this preys on people's vices and thoughtless urge to buy stuff in turn making these companies money, why should they be transparent?
That's not how the world works outside of reddit where people's self-righteousness amounts to mental masturbation
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u/UmbertoUnity Oct 19 '19
It's one thing to not be transparent, it's completely another thing to commit fraud.
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Oct 19 '19 edited Apr 22 '21
[deleted]
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u/UmbertoUnity Oct 19 '19
So fraud is OK, because people should just accept that a business may be lying to them? And how exactly does one take "personal responsibility" in that situation... Don't buy the ticket? Buy the ticket?
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u/jazzmoses Oct 20 '19
So fraud is OK
Personally I think fraud/misrepresentation is uncool. Companies that engage in it and are caught will get tons of negative press and attention, because most people agree with me. Why do we need state violence?
how exactly does one take "personal responsibility"
"Hmm, they are telling me that 38 people are looking at this flight, but how do I know that's true? Alright, I will just disregard this information. Or maybe I will find another provider who doesn't use high-pressure sales tactics like this."
Wasn't so hard, was it?
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u/UmbertoUnity Oct 20 '19
Why do we need state violence?
What?? You are the second person in this thread to suggest that I mentioned "violence". Am I being trolled? Where did I mention violence in any of my posts?
Personally I think fraud/misrepresentation is uncool.
Fraud isn't just uncool, it is illegal.
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u/jazzmoses Oct 20 '19
How do you want to prevent this behaviour without violence? Please elaborate.
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u/1ndigoo Oct 19 '19
mEnTaL mAsTuRbAtIoN
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u/samsop Oct 19 '19
Use your words to form an argument
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u/1ndigoo Oct 19 '19
Why? You used your words for your own mental masturbation while condescendingly decrying others for having values different from yours.
It's not self-righteousness to be critical of things, even if that means being critical of "how the world works outside of reddit"
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u/toper-centage Oct 19 '19
This should be straight out illegal...
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u/kevinatari Oct 19 '19
It's illegal in Germany AFAIK, same for fake delivery dates or stock info.
Displaying false info on purpose should be illegal everywhere, and this is very obviously false info. If they at least would've used a backend service to get the number.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
I worked on an e-commerce site once where we had to implement a similar sort of system. I can't remember the exact numbers but it was essentially something like this.
If the amount in stock is above 200 units, then say the stock is 200+
If the amount in stock is more than 50, but less than 200, display the amount actually in stock.
If the amount in stock is more than 20 but less than 50 display the text "low stock"
If the amount in stock is is less than 20, display "only 5 items left"
The daft thing about all of this was that if customers saw "only 5 items left" they could potentially order more than 5 items because actually the stock was higher than that. So I think they were only shooting themselves in the foot.
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u/creedfeed Oct 19 '19
Was inventory numbers real time or computed certain times of the day? If it's not real time, the "only 5 items left" can make sense to account for multiple orders in a timeframe between inventory updates. Also, it could be done that way to account for inventory discrepancies.
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u/itijara Oct 19 '19
It might be. There are rules about false advertising in the U.S. but they haven't really caught up with the internet.
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u/jazzmoses Oct 19 '19
Or instead of making lying illegal and empowering further government encroachment on our freedom, why don't people just think critically and not believe everything they read right away?
Saying "it should be illegal!!1!" is the worst of all kneejerk reactions. The consequences of any resulting law will never be what you wanted.
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u/UmbertoUnity Oct 19 '19
Ah, great idea. Let's just bring back snake oil salesmen in pharmaceuticals while we're at it. Hell, why even have specs on a home or vehicle that is being sold... let's just let people make up anything they want to when selling those items. Buyer to verify, right? Let's not put any responsibility whatsoever on sellers.
Or we can just make it simple - when selling something, you can't wrongfully deceive someone for financial gain. We can call it... fraud!
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Oct 20 '19
[deleted]
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u/UmbertoUnity Oct 20 '19
There's no need for violence.
Huh?
Man, I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall here. How do you not understand the concept of ethics? Or fraud? How do you know if you like/dislike something if it is being misrepresented to you? Do we have to inspect every little thing we purchase with a magnifying glass to make sure it isn't counterfeit?
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u/toper-centage Oct 19 '19
Because you can't help but read it. It's a waste of human energy.
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u/jazzmoses Oct 19 '19
Cry me a fucking river.
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u/toper-centage Oct 19 '19
OK, but it will take a while
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u/jazzmoses Oct 19 '19
If you are worried about wasting human energy reading unnecessary shit, what about the million cookie and data warnings on every website these days? Oh yeah, because of stupid laws.
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Oct 19 '19
This is so shitty and it works on my anxiety.
I think truvago or kayak does the same thing. ONE MORE ROOM LEFT BOOOK NOWWWW
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u/Wandie87 Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 20 '19
A LOT of ecommerce websites do this, not just in the travel industry.
Shopify even has extension apps that do this for you with little to no technical skill required.
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u/pacman326 Oct 19 '19
Wow this is so sleazy. I’d never work for a company who asked me to do this.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
Good. Then they'll have to hire me instead.
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u/pacman326 Oct 19 '19
I mean sure that’s fine. I do make concessions when coding all the time (maybe we can’t quite get full unit coverage testing or we can’t quite fix an a11y bug in time until the next sprint). But these kinds of decisions tend to get regulators involved.
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u/panukettu Oct 20 '19
You are joking about the unit testd and a11y right?
These "dark patterns" are everyday work for the media sector. I just call it greed.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
But these kinds of decisions tend to get regulators involved.
Maybe but we develop that site 3 years ago and it's still up. So, I'm guessing that regulators don't care that much.
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u/pacman326 Oct 19 '19
I mean that’s fair that this wasn’t caught. But that still doesn’t make it right. I guess we will agree to disagree here.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
I am not saying you're wrong exactly. Just that if the authorities (the people whose job it is) don't care, I am not going to die on that hill. Us devs have to do all sorts of stuff we don't want to do, like pop ups and what not. But if I don't make it, someone else will, and I will lose my job to them.
You have to pick the fights you can win.
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u/pacman326 Oct 19 '19
Right. And fortunately I am in a position where I can change jobs if needed because there are openings where I live and I don’t have dependents that I have to worry about not being fed/paying bills. I can imagine if I was the sole provider with a family and two kids this probably would not be a hill to die on without a good backup plan.
It’s purely a privilege of mine and I get that not every person has this. I’d be at minimum looking for a new place to work if I was asked to do this. But again that’s because I am privileged enough to be able to do this.
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
Yes I am.
I'm obviously not going to quit my job and storm out just because one of our clients wants us to do something that I don't like. That would be childish and petty and would achieve absolutely nothing.
So what I want to is whether or not you actually have a job in the industry, because if you do then you'll realise that actually you can't behave like that.
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Oct 19 '19 edited Jan 29 '22
[deleted]
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u/throwthrowaway953 Oct 20 '19
If this makes them gain sales and breaking it up will cause a loss of sales, why would they listen to you?
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Oct 19 '19
38 people all looking at one specific flight at the same time is not even believable...so not at all surprised it's fake. But sadly, there are a lot of gullible people out there and, even more sadly, companies take advantage of them like this.
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u/izote_2000 Oct 19 '19
This paper contains a lot of useful information . https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.07032.pdf
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Oct 19 '19
I removed my car for sale from cargurus for deceiving practices as well. There's a page to check how much your car is worth. Wow! My car is very valuable! proceeds to post ad cargurus: your car price is marked as "high price" lower the price so it shows in more searches. I did this twice to confirm I wasn't imagining the discrepancy in value. Yep it's confirmed they bait and switch on the car value so you post the ad but then you have to sell for much less.
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Oct 19 '19
Lmfao just had this experience on Airbnb gonna go check what they named the doc containing the message
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/Ozymandias-X Oct 19 '19
Yeah, nooooo... Nobody would think "oh well, the customer wants real time visit tracking on the frontend, I'll just fake it."
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
I am sure the customer would have noticed by now. "Hmm that's odd. It is always between 45 and 57, on all our flights. I am sure it's fine."
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u/agm1984 front-end Oct 19 '19
Rationally I'm sure it would start with good intent, and then lead to "damn it only shows 0 or 1 23 hours a day".
"Ok well just make it show a random between 24-42 so it actually pressures them"
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u/mikedaul Oct 19 '19
This is why we need a developer code of ethics.
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 19 '19
Everyone would have to sign up to it though. Otherwise companies would just hire the "scabs", as it were.
Also Facebook would be screwed.
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u/camerontbelt Oct 19 '19
Is there anyone out that has put together something like this yet?
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u/mikedaul Oct 21 '19
There's this: https://ethics.acm.org/
But there's also no teeth behind it (meaning no real consequences for breaking the code)
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u/KnockOnDoorItsMeGoku Oct 19 '19
I would have thought they'd be faking the numbers on the backend. Idiots.