I've read this three times now and I'm still not sure I get it...
But I've never really figured out the "double-negative, Newspeak is good for you!" thing, so I'm not sure.
For about ten years now, every time I use Paypal for an eBay payment, I'm interrupted to choose a $10.00 off opt-in for setting up credit, I have to click-thru this every time. By now, I've done this several hundreds of times.
I'm just a fish trying to stay out of their double-trap dark pattern slippery slope trammel net.
For the whole 18-20 months whenever I have gone to google+ on the web it has first had an obstacle "Find your friends" page asking me to spam all my contacts about google+.
It still does it even today. There is no opt-out or "stop asking me to do this" checkbox. Even though I am an active plus user with posts and comments, it still treats me like a first timer.
I'm trying to get into google+ but there is no way I'm going to spam my friends.
That it has been doing this to me hundreds of times for nearly two years is unbelievable.
NYT coverage is usually good, I miss it, but now BBC, Reuters, Guardian, rt, Der Spiegel, HN, are my primary news feeds.