Comment by sriku

Dark patterns are everywhere and I'm afraid not enough people are raising a ruckus about them. For example, the "Google Pay" app in India, which works via the UPI system, shows its own "scanner code" in the app as opposed to the standard UPI QR code. Furthermore, you can't discover where the UPI QR code is, if you want to pay using BHIM - an app that works directly with UPI payments. If you're using GPay too, then you can access the scanner code. If not, you used to be able to select the UPI QR code from a menu and scan that. However, later updates have hidden that - not eliminated it, mind you, deliberately hidden that. You have to "swipe left" when you see the GPay scanner code to get to the QR code - not at all a discoverble act. My wife discovered it by accident after we were puzzled a few times about where the QR code that used to be accessible went (both of us use BHIM). As a consequence, folks who use GPay do not know about UPI. This is, in my books, malicious design. Hanlon's razor would ask me to try "stupidity" first. But no. This isn't stupidity. It is downright malicious (the benign term being "dark pattern") to do this .. at least at Google's level.