> Trying to hang onto systems where your customers resent paying you is not where you want to be.

OK but like, dark patterns exist and everybody knows users don’t like them. Developers use them anyway because they’re profitable. Yeah I guess you feel bad but the bags of money help dry those tears.

If there’s no chance of customers altering their decision )because you have something exclusive for which there is no substitute, or no good substitute) then there’s very little downside to dark patterns. And this is true even for something as banal as a newspaper subscription, where you would think there’s a lot of substitutes.