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Unpopular truth: Telemetry collection actually happens because people are garbage at being helpful to support (www.uncommonapps.nyc)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Building relationships with customers through support didn't turn out as hoped

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[–] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

A/B testing without consent is unethical. This doesn’t fly in any scientific fields, yet the technology industry doesn’t think twice about experimenting on users without consent.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I think it's a bit of a stretch to consider A/B testing under the same umbrella as subjecting somebody to a scientific study. A/B testing can be selling different products in different stores or trying different pricing strategies. There are certainly shady things you can do with A/B testing, like trying out dark patterns, but require consumers give consent for any kind of market experimentation?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Yeah, it depends on the potential adverse impact. On a web app that does nothing significant, it doesn't matter. If life and limb are at risk, or someone's money, that's different. And if it's a bug fix, you need to consider the consequences of not fixing it too.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    What a load of bollocks.

    Nobody owes you anything, especially if it's a free service. And A/B testing is pretty much the only way to get reliable results on how a feature may shape user experience.

    Or would you rather companies just delivered features without any care how it affects users?

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