Some apps, and many webpages on Android have this dark pattern of miniscule transparent x's to close ads and popups, that somehow don't register very easily. I'm on a Pixel 3 and I've replaced the device for unrelated reasons, it's not my screen. And my fingers are normally-sized.
What that means is that people get this popup video playing, get a little X, try to hit the X but hit the thing behind it, or click on something else taking you elsewhere, or starting the video if by miracle autoplay ISN'T overridden...
And so forth. I could go on and talk about how I have to zoom in with two hands, crane my neck and open the little x so it's a bigger X, so I can close it...
But I'd rather focus on the question - how is this sustainable? That hostility makes users hostile, and it makes your entire ad infrastructure feel like a dirty enterprise, not the "it runs the Internet" philosophy that I'm guess adtech says to itself. Here's the thing - if I'm the company trying to advertise, do I even want to pay for clicks that are unwanted?
What that means is that people get this popup video playing, get a little X, try to hit the X but hit the thing behind it, or click on something else taking you elsewhere, or starting the video if by miracle autoplay ISN'T overridden...
And so forth. I could go on and talk about how I have to zoom in with two hands, crane my neck and open the little x so it's a bigger X, so I can close it...
But I'd rather focus on the question - how is this sustainable? That hostility makes users hostile, and it makes your entire ad infrastructure feel like a dirty enterprise, not the "it runs the Internet" philosophy that I'm guess adtech says to itself. Here's the thing - if I'm the company trying to advertise, do I even want to pay for clicks that are unwanted?