Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Your two replies have nothing to do with my two comments, unfortunately.

Why is "gamification of shopping" banned? EU law is on a slippery slope because under the stated aim of protecting consumers what it is doing is treating us like children and banning anything that the benevolent Commission think is 'bad' for us. This can end very badly for our freedoms (it has started).

Now, I do agree with banning misleading practices and with enforcing information to consumers, but that's quite different: In a free society you make sure that people are informed and then you let them make their own decisions, you don't make those decisions on their behalf which implies that they can't be trusted to make the "correct" decision (with chilling ramifications for the democratic process).



So you do not agree that the gamification of shopping is a misleading practice?

If so, I'm curious why you think that any consumer wants the system to be gamed? And why freedom to game the system should be a right.


Why would gamification be a misleading practice per se?

Obviously the term has nothing to with "gaming the system", which is an expression that essnetially means cheating.

You can go to a casino and play roulette or slots without being misled or cheated. That being the case you can definitely gamify shopping without misleading or cheating customers. If that's the case then people are adults and make their own decisions.


I don't think any sane consumer wants gamification. Can you give an example of why a consumer would want it (other than by being coerced into it by the seller)?

Temu is doing this because they gain from it. So if this were legal, then other sellers might be forced to do it too to remain competitive. Is this really a direction you want to go in?


This argument assumes equal power of parties involved.

Unless you are an organiziation the size of Temu, you either put up with their bullshit or you don't get to buy whatever it is you wanted to buy.

The way out here is using the power of the democratically elected state to put Temu in their place - using democracy to counteract capitalist abuse.


> you either put up with their bullshit or you don't get to buy whatever it is you wanted to buy.

Or you remember that you have free will and that no-one is forcing you to use their app or to buy anything on it...

Also, this was about gamification, not unfair practices...


Gamification is unfair practices.

And yes, I have free will, but that doesn't help me against corporate might. Only the state does.


Gamification is not an unfair practice. Gambling is not an unfair practice.

This is not what "unfair" means.

The EU wants to ban gamification because it sees it as addictive. So this is the nanny state that thinks people are children.


Gamification is a practice to obscure pricing, which makes it unfair.

And of course, the state should do that. That's the whole point of a state - to use its power as a weapon of the people against capitalist abuses.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: