> “messages from non-friends are really hard to find lol” UI dark pattern
You think you would do something different here? And you have considered all the possible ramifications of doing so? No doubt you've considered the impact on the number of spammy/scammy interactions that everyone experiences, the number of harassing messages that people around the world receive and you've made an informed trade-off between that and meaningful social interactions people have with the folks who find their wallet.
Seems like a pretty strong statement to call it a dark pattern, implying malice, when it could just be a good thing.
FB's solution to unsolicited messages and spam was basically to make messages from non-friends totally invisible. I wouldn't really call it a dark pattern, but they have broken the ability to send messages to anyone who is not your friend. It's pretty much a spam filter with with one binary parameter. It's just lazy.
Interesting point, I wonder if they can apply some logic into it, like if the sender is male and he's written to many female non-friends, give him a higher "probably junk" score. But if he's gotten good response rates his message is probably worth delivering.
FB probably already has data to know how much of a pervert someone is... if they linger on those beach pictures for too long, for example.
If email worked this way, the whole thing would collapse, because much of the time, you really do want to receive messages from new people. How would contacting a business work if their email system auto-rejected all messages from people not already known?
Sure, spam is a big problem, and that's why we've invented spam filters. Google was able to do that and it works well. Granted, Google is a huge company with lots of resources, but so is Facebook, so why can't they be bothered?
>Don't use it to message strangers, it's very explicitly not what the platform is designed for.
Wrong, it's designed to help people get in contact with each other. This doesn't mean everyone wants to be friends first before exchanging some messages.
Tools don't exist in a vacuum. When a tool is a closed platform driven by a business, that business is going to heavy-handidly steer how the tool is used.
It isn’t always socially appropriate to friend request people, which is why I rarely do it (because I have no idea what the other person’s expectations are). If I’ve been introduced to a total stranger via Messenger, I don’t necessarily want to (nor should I have to) be their “friend” just to have them see my messages.
> If email worked this way, the whole thing would collapse, because much of the time, you really do want to receive messages from new people.
Of course. But Facebook isn't e-mail. A closed system that thrives on heavily weighted social graphs is just nothing like an open standard for arbitrary message exchange.
> Wrong, it's designed to help people get in contact with each other.
Based on what? Have you used Facebook? Everything they do is about building and establishing communities, that's their business and they know it. They do almost nothing to help strangers communicate one-off. We are literally in the middle of a discussion about how Facebook gives low priority to messages from strangers, which is evidence that they have this mentality.
You think you would do something different here? And you have considered all the possible ramifications of doing so? No doubt you've considered the impact on the number of spammy/scammy interactions that everyone experiences, the number of harassing messages that people around the world receive and you've made an informed trade-off between that and meaningful social interactions people have with the folks who find their wallet.
Seems like a pretty strong statement to call it a dark pattern, implying malice, when it could just be a good thing.