&gt;It is surprising to me that this feels so negative to you. Every large social tech company - Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Groupon, LivingSocial (RIP), Tinder - have all used tactics similar to what you label &#x27;dark patterns&#x27; to bootstrap their businesses.<p>That doesn&#x27;t make it acceptable.<p>The people who fund, manage and work for these types of companies should be blacklisted in the industry.