The Most Evil Dark Pattern on the Internet

Every screen in this bracket was built to look completely ordinary. That is the trick. A deceptive pattern only works while you still believe the choice was yours, so none of them announce themselves — you notice the good ones weeks later, on a bank statement.

Some take something from you straight away: a fee that appears only at the last step, an item sitting in your basket that you never put there, a free trial that starts charging the moment you stop thinking about it. Others simply wear you down. The decline button written to make you feel stupid. The consent box ticked before you arrived. The cancellation that asks eight times whether you are sure and then fails with an error.

The interfaces here are drawn rather than photographed, and no real company is named, because what is on trial is the shape of the trick rather than whoever used it most recently. The red marks are ours — they point at the part of the screen doing the damage, which is otherwise the part you were meant to skip over.

Pick the one you find least defensible. Most people arrive expecting to crown something that costs money, and end up in a final between two patterns that only ever cost them their time.