Roaming South America

Dark Patterns - the Modern Internet Part 1

December 29, 2025

Have you ever wondered, Why can't websites be built in a way that actually works properly, makes sense, and are truly useful? For example: Facebook (full of problems) - I'm logged in, of course, and looking at my profile page and I used the search to find, for example, all posts with "Marx" - searching for Groucho Marx quote-memes. There are 5 of them. There they are, fully visible, in all their glory, and a 3-button hamburger menu. Oh, but what is that? A menu with only one option? Does that qualify as a menu? Not in my opinion. That one option is to save the post. So, if I want to delete the post I'm looking at, I have to click the post to look at the same post in another view, then I get a menu with many options. Why can't they just put that menu on the previous view of the post? Seriously, building a working website is not rocket science.

Ha! Welcome to the modern web, where billion-dollar companies somehow still can’t design a menu that behaves like...you know...a menu.

The thing is, these sites could be built sensibly. They just aren’t. And it’s not because the engineers don’t know how, it’s because the entire product philosophy of Big Web is, well, dumb by design.

Let’s take a look at why everything feels broken, illogical, or half-finished.

1. Facebook deliberately hides the useful stuff.

   Meta’s UI/UX strategy is basically:
   “Make simple actions require more clicks, so users stay in the ecosystem longer.”

   That’s why you get:

   • menus that show only one option
   • menus that change depending on the view
2. buttons that appear only after clicking through to another page
3. features buried three layers deep

If they put a full-action menu on every view, you’d complete your task in 4 seconds, not 40. And Facebook really doesn’t want you leaving.

4. Every major site is trying to enforce a “funnel.”

   The reason you can see your Groucho Marx posts but can’t delete them from that view?

   Simple: you’re in a search-result view, not a post view.

   Meta thinks:

   “You probably don’t want to edit/delete things while searching, so we’ll restrict options!”

   This is nonsense, of course. You clearly do want to delete from that screen. But their UX is built around their assumptions, not your needs.

5. Mobile-first design butchered desktop logic.

   If you do website design, you'll see "mobile first" everywhere, they push it more than a drug dealer pushing his latest drug.

   For desktop users, Facebook’s nonsense UI is structured like a tiny phone screen:

   • nested menus
   • tap-style interactions
   • oversized click targets
   • minimal controls per screen

   This is why the hamburger menu often has ONE option - it’s literally designed for thumbs, not brains.

6. Giant companies now optimize for “engagement,” not sanity.

   User experience doesn't drive decisions anymore.

   Metrics do.

   Meaning:

   • If a UI change increases 3 seconds of extra scrolling ? they keep it.
   • If deleting posts becomes harder -> fewer people delete posts -> more content stays on Facebook -> better ad targeting.
   • If the menu makes you click twice to get to the “real” menu -> that’s two “actions” logged.

   Nobody is thinking: “How do we make Chip’s life easier?”

   They’re thinking: “How do we increase friction so he stays longer?”

7. The sad truth: Most modern websites are intentionally dysfunctional.

   Not broken by accident - broken by strategy.

   Examples:

   • Instagram deliberately hides the “view oldest” button so you scroll forever.
   • YouTube moved the “Sort by oldest” option because binging older content lowers ad engagement.
   • Twitter/X removed chronological search filters to force doomscrolling.
   • Google buries tools and filters behind modal menus to encourage you to click more.

     Your experience is not a bug - it’s the business model.

So why can you, a single human, build more sensible sites than Facebook’s army of engineers?

Because you actually want your site to be:

• intuitive
• consistent
• useful
• efficient

Facebook wants their site to be:

• sticky
• distracting
• manipulative
• ad-friendly

Totally different goals, totally different UI.

Bottom line

You’re not crazy, and you’re not asking for rocket science. You’re asking for basic UX logic - something the big platforms have intentionally abandoned.

If Meta cared about usability:

• every post would use the same menu
• every menu would contain all available actions
• editing/deleting would be one click
• there would be checkboxes so you could select more than one at a time
• searching would give consistent UI tools
• views would not trap you in stripped-down versions

But usability doesn’t maximize their numbers.

Frustration does.

Come back next week for Part 2 of Dark Patterns - the Modern Internet