alt Hacker NewsYeah this seems to be a trend over the last few years.
Google does this too. I don't have photos backed up to my Google account on a Pixel and every few days if I open the photos app it prompts me to backup to the cloud and I always have to click "maybe later", "not now" or whatever they decide to name it.
It's messed up because if I were to accidentally ever click yes to that it would fill up my Google storage and I would no longer be able to receive email since I'd have 0% storage. I don't get how something so dangerous can be shoved in front of you so frequently. I know it's marketing / advertising to constantly remind you of something even if you don't want it, but I would have thought customer happiness would outweigh that.
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or every time you click a YT link in firefox on android it asks "do you want to open this in the YT App?" where you're options are Yes (with an always use app checkbox) and "Cancel" to open in the browser. Like "Cancel" means "no, get out of the way and do what I want before you injected yourself in this flow"
Those are dark patterns for sure. I don’t know how big companies can still pull that in 2026
This happens to my family :-(
I host an Immich server for us. They don’t want Google Photos syncing and they know to watch out for the dark patterns, but, eventually, they come over with Google Photos syncing.
The other day my mother came to me with a OneDrive prompt on her Pixel. It was asking if she wanted to “free up space”. I’m pretty sure it was trying to get her to sync photos. I wish I would have taken a screenshot. She’s not low on space.
Of course, the only way space gets freed up is if they delete your local copies. It’s practically ransomware and they can’t figure out why people hate them.