Dark Patterns: why do companies pursue strategies that make their customers regret doing business?

Oh man 2 days ago in my wonderful online job search fun. I was filling out an application and I swear the crappy UI was some sort of pre-screen to weed out people who were not serious about the job. The edit field link was only on the pencil icon not the word and icon. When you finished it the tiny pop up window would refresh and jump back to the top of the page so you had to scroll down again to check your work and start on the next section or even get to the next page button when you were done. That was something worth taking the designer out behind the shed for.

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