Gambling (for clients) is a negative-sum game. Market indices (that are not rigged) random walk but with an underlying drift. The claim that day-traders cannot beat the market (index) does not mean they need to mathematically be negative in returns (on average).
It lets people of their own free will exercise their judgement to wager on sporting and other events. Unless you think all gambling is by definition unethical for religious reasons, I'd say they were pretty legit.
Gambling is mathematically negative sum. Its a fucking stupid tax. That is ethically dubious for non-religious reasons.[0]
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Betfair's business is illegal in the United States[1]
Betfair faces millions in fines after content ruled illegal [2]
[0] It is activity tolerated (cynically) for its ability to raise taxes, and even then only in small doses.
But I believe if you do some google research, there are other concerns.[3] These include things like time-delayed feeds to support real time betting (and fraudulent front running) as well as a variety of your typical deceptive TOS pseudo-scams (bonus schemes, etc).
It has >1000 upvotes and >450 comments. It was on the front page about 11am and then by noon had disappeared (I stopped looking after about 10 pages).
Honestly, I'd still like an answer as to why. I know pages without links degrade quicker but this isn't what happened here. Nothing drops from top of the front page to page 11+ that quickly.
This company is a scam and it concerns me greatly that this may have been taken down, which raises the obvious question of why. User jdh (Josh Hannah of Matrix Partners), an investor in JustFab, tried defending the company but copped a (deserved) beating from the HN masses to the deceptive (arguably fraudulent) tactics of the modern-day "shoe of the month" club that is JustFab.
As another user mentioned, TechCrunch covered the class auction lawsuit (from 2011?) on the same day.
Please stop looking for conspiracies. Things disappear off the front page all the time. Perhaps it hit the threshold for enough flags, perhaps it just aged out.
There is all kinds of manipulation going on on HN, who knows how much of it is above-board. Titles change, threads sunk, and more. It's one reason I don't trust the site.
Let's stop calling it a "dark pattern" (as if that's a thing) and call it what it is: knowingly deceiving people into subsequent financial transactions they didn't agree upon. It's morally abhorrent and not very legal.
I agree. Can we call it fraud? To my non-legally-trained eyes it seems to match the definition -- the wording seems to suggest that someone doesn't have to literally lie to commit fraud, and while I doubt the courts are ready to consider dark patterns deceptive and misleading, I think a UX specialist could very reasonably make that jump for the purposes of their own speech.
Wikipedia:
> In criminal law, fraud is intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual
law.com:
> the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com
> A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.
fbi.gov, justice.gov:
> [Ponzi Schemes, Fake Lotteries, and Pump&Dump Schemes are typical examples of fraud]
I doubt that one of the above could save themselves from the wrath of the justice department by burying a disclaimer in a heap of legalese served up alongside their bait (otherwise they would be doing it en masse). So the question is what fundamentally separates these from smaller-denomination uses of dark patterns. I'd love for someone who knows what they're talking about to weigh in.
Well is it a 'pattern of deception' right? Calling it a 'Decepitcon pattern' would be trademark infringement :-). But I find the phrase 'dark pattern' reasonably resonant with 'design pattern' which was a useful way to organize my thinking about software construction. Because of that 'dark pattern' works for me a way to organize business practices that are deceptive.
I find dark pattern doesn't lend it the gravity it deserves - when you say "dark pattern" I think of sneaky ways to sign you up for mailing lists, or sneaky ways to get you to click on more ads.
Which is to say, relatively low-damage varieties of evil.
It's a whole different ball game when you're using said patterns to directly extract money from people's bank accounts.
It's a little like calling a bank robbery "shoplifting". I feel like extremely egregious violations of basic morals and ethics shouldn't be described with the same word we use to describe garden variety sketchy practices.
This website is like a Web 2.0 version of Columbia House. It's called "negative option billing" and they've never been stopped from doing it either. Heck, it was only in 2011 that they actually lost a class action suit.
Companies are going to continue to do it because they aren't likely to lose. Best we can do is name and shame everyone involved.
There's a huge range though. There's the "Uncheck this box to not subscribe to our newsletter" versus "We're going to hide wording calling this a subscription opt-in outside of the expected eye tracking range for our audience."
We already know "people don't read online" (anywhere?), so adding words outside of the experience itself justifying their actions isn't just a "dark pattern," it's much worse.
I think dignifying it with the name "dark pattern" makes it too easy to dismiss as "oh, one of those silly things people do to get more signups" versus "Uh, this iOS app just maxed out my credit card because I let my 5 year old play PAY-FOR-POINTS 2.0 FREE EDITION."
Just Fab is a monthly VIP membership program that grants fashion lovers access to celebrity stylists and the hottest shoes and handbags.
I love how this is the sales pitch to investors.[1] Meanwhile, the sales pitch to consumers is basically do everything possible to <hide> this. see, eg: Previous HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455391
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[1] See linked article, in the Crunchbase Section.
If it needs a constant supply of bigger idiots to keep growing...well, one needs a lot of capital coming in to provide the illusion of success. Investors are piling on because they see these amazing numbers from a shoe store and believe this company has found a new way to sucker people out of their money. And, they have...but, only new people who don't realize it's a scam. So, they need a ton of money to keep reaching new people.
Their investor, in a comment in a prior thread here at HN, claimed JustFab could offer such amazing deals(!) by foregoing advertising and new customer acquisition costs. But, I bet that's a tremendous lie. I bet they have to spend vastly more on marketing than most shoe stores, because they have to trick an ever growing pool of people into signing on for their bullshit VIP service or their growth will halt. Much like Groupon has tremendous customer acquisition costs, and a very high touch sales channel, JustFab is gonna have to figure out how to keep the funnel working, because old customers aren't going to be a thing they get to have.
I would give good odds on the following:
1. Their customer retention numbers are misrepresented. Probably not blatantly false, but certainly misleading by omission. Their funnel is so misleading as to make it impossible they are actually making people happy with their subscription service.
2. Their profit numbers required juggling of expenses to make it look good. As with Groupon, they're probably trying to pass off ongoing marketing expenses as one-time expenses. This would be a lie. But, it would not be the first time a venture-backed company lied.
3. Their investors are expecting a bigger fool to come along to relieve them of their stake long before the house of cards comes crashing down. They are probably right. It will probably be big, dumb, and slow money that is trying to look smart and agile. Unfortunately, big, dumb, and slow money is often money that most effects less wealthy folks.
Needless to say, I am not impressed with this company, its tactics, or its investors. It is a toxic culture that accepts this kind of shady dealings as "business as usual". This kind of thing shouldn't keep popping up every few months...investors should be ashamed of themselves for taking part in this. If the world were sane and just, they'd all lose their money, and a bit of their credibility. But, the world is not always sane or just. They'll probably make out like the bandits they are, just as the early investors in and founders of Groupon made a killing (while the last round of investors lost a fortune). Dishonesty pays off if the lie is big enough, it seems.
Just yesterday I've learned that my wife ordered something from JustFab (luckily I saw the previous article on HN). Obviously she was shocked to find out about the real nature of the subscription and she immediately deleted her account.
This might be the end of startup bubble. Not that I'm a prophet but vc starting to take part in openly scam sites and dodgy business means something. From business point of view founder is a genius he made a business that is dodgy got ~80 million and dispersed responsibility. So he will never get into trouble.
Yes there is a life lesson in there about reading the Terms of Service.
No, I don't think they are illegal.
No, I don't think they are the scum of the earth.
What do you want VC's to do? Not invest in profitable companies that operate with in the law?
At the same time most of Hacker News cheers on Uber which operated illegally, and was losing money.
What kinds of companies do you expect VC's to throw Millions at? Cause it seems like the ones that are legal, profitable, and "scummy" are good investments for a while.. Zynga springs to mind. Google... Quite a few people don't like PayPal, put them on the list...
Mostly though the more you talk about JustFab the more press they will get. How do you think TechCrunch picks stories? Based on what gets read. So the more you vote them up the more they will write about them, the more they write about them the more money they will raise.
Maybe I should piss off the HackerNews crowd so my company will get more press....
It's not about breaking rules or laws, it's about taking advantage of people. Uber is loved here because they made a great product in the face of awful laws that protect out-dated but entrenched business models.
"Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?"
1021 points by wenxun 3 days ago | flag | 456 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455391
Here's a particularly good subthread. It would be at the top, but the root comment was controversial:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455575