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I once found a "+1 subscriber" random notification on some page and asked the LinkedIn person who sent me the page to knock it off. It was obviously fake even before looking at the code for proof.

But there's self-advertised "Appeal to popularity" everywhere.

Have you noticed that every app on the play store asks you if you like it and only after you answer YES send you to the store to rate it? It's so standard that it would be weird not to use this trick.



My bank app asks me to review it every time, and only when, I deposit money. It’s so transparent in its attempted manipulation: you just got some money and are likely to be in a better mood than other times you’re using the app!

Literally every deposit. Eventually, I’ll leave a 1-star nastygram review for treating me like an idiot. (It won’t matter and nothing will change.)


> Eventually, I’ll leave a 1-star nastygram review for treating me like an idiot. (It won’t matter and nothing will change.)

If enough people give it 1 star with the same complaint, it might. After all, like you said they’re trying to manipulate you to a specific behaviour but if it has the opposite effect it’s in their best interest to reverse it.


It could also be that they really care that the experience of _sending_ them money is frictionless, but they don't care so much about other actions (such as withdrawals...)


It could be, but having worked on big mobile apps before, I find that very generous interpretation to be much less likely than my interpretation.




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