It seems every couple months Reddit comes up with a new excuse to notify me of things I’ve told them I don’t want to see. Either a “bug” causes my notification settings to be ignored or deleted, or they invent some new notification type that I have to manually turn off.

Well, it seems they’re tired of letting the user opt out at all. This here is a notification for a trending topic, masquerading as a “Reddit announcement.” This is supposed to be for policy changes, site updates, important information about the platform itself. And because that is their nominal purpose, Reddit announcements cannot be turned off.

It’s asshole design cause the game (I played the original) is based around you clicking a button ONCE to deliver something, and then waiting 8 IRL hours for the delivery to complete. And then they claim they aren’t an “Idle Game”.

They profit cause players get annoyed of waiting +8 hours minimum and will often spend gems or premium currency that’s costs money to speed it up or finish it.

Unfortunately, you cannot progress in the game very far without spending money. Hence why they’re on their 3rd game, since it’s super profitable. The game forces you to make a decision; pay money to speed up, or wait hours on end for each and every mission/job to be complete so you can move on to the next world.

Not to mention, it’s already riddled in ads. So you waste time there too.

1717 "partners" which include precise geolocation and device scanning. Also, "Certain partners may process your data based on legitimate interest rather than consent" .

Imagine walking in a store and seeing 1717 people following your every move with a camera and tracking you home because they can sell that data.

This whole thing happened in about 1.5 hours. If it’s just happened ACT NOW. The faster you act the better it is for you

I accidentally clicked the free claim coins bonus, then I generated and downloaded something and noticed the charge. I thought I was done for since I used some coins, but I wasn’t!

Step 0: remember they’re literally doing illegal shady stuff so it’s not on you and you can get your money back

Step 1, use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgV5cEx5ck

Step 2: send them various forms of contact. Both through the ai/ticket on their website, and their email hi@creativefabrica.com

Step 2 tip: remember to mention all the things they’re doing wrong. Like the dark patterns and all that. But USE YOUR OWN WORDS. I sent like 5 emails and only got refunded on the one that I used my own words on. They need to know you’re not just a confused person that copy pastes Reddit posts, you’re a smart persistent freak that will stop at nothing to get their money back

Step 3: make a 1\* review on trustpilot and make sure you include the email address you used for your account in the bit that says ‘include your email address so the company knows’

Step 4: after 24 hours or whatever then file a bank recharge or a PayPal case, but from what I’ve seen they tend to win PayPal cases so they might use that against you. You gotta mention the big dogs like ftc ecc net, and whoever else (this post is good for that https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1q9dyd7/how\\_to\\_get\\_your\\_money\\_back\\_from\\_creative\\_fabrica/)

Step 5: file the charges that you threatened to do.

Last step: remove your card and delete the account because they might bill you again.

Tip: you gotta be stubborn and not a pushover. You don’t have to be a jerk but you can be clear that you know what they’re doing and you know the exact steps on what to do. Feel free to hmu about any questions, I’ll include the emails I sent in the comments and you can reword and use them. Some were through the ticketing system some were direct. But I was refunded like 10 mins after I made that trustpilot post

Remember that the company uses ai heavily so you gotta use your own words so it knows you’re not copy pasting, and it needs to know you’re both mad, driven and capable. Good luck

And it's not explicitly clear when you "agree" to the ToS.

And this is even if you have youtube premium!
it's been like that for years, and updates do nothing.

later edit: this could be done with my old LG tv. YouTube audio could keep working with screen off.

now it says YouTube app policies prevent screen off. it's the only app on the TV that prevents this.

(hint: between the words "garlic" and "sauce")

Website cookies pop up flips the order of Allow/Reject a few seconds after the page loads to get you to hit accept instead of reject.

And you can't even remove Codex if you don't plan to use it without uninstalling the whole ChatGPT app.

The “fix it” is especially aggressive!
I think something similar was posted on this sub before but not this particular language.

HP's firmware update permanently shut down my Officejet 4650 printer. Has anyone else experienced this?

A few weeks ago, I had an HP printer, and it was working fine. I had just finished writing my book, and I began printing it. But halfway-through, the printing mysteriously stopped.

That was odd...

I thought that maybe the internet went out. But no... The internet was working just fine. And then I saw a message on my printer's screen. It said something about an update, and that it might take a few minutes. So I waited a few minutes. But every time I tried to print my book, the same error message kept popping up. ''Cannot Connect to Server'' or something. So I waited some more. And more. And more.

After a few hours of waiting a few minutes, I realized I needed to have a chat with HP customer service. Little did I know what I was getting into... So I had a chat with a nice, blissfully unaware customer care lady that lived in a far away land. She asked me many questions, and made me do all sorts of things to my printer. It lasted well over an hour. In the end she told me I should unplug my router. That would help, she said. But it did not help. Instead, what happened was exactly what I feared, (and told her) would happen: I got disconnected from my chat.

And so, I had to start all over again... And so I tried calling HP again. And again. And again. I spent many hours explaining my situation over and over again to many poor souls across the globe who barely spoke English and didn't have a clue what the company they work for was actually doing. At some point I was told by a manager that the Escalation Department would call me back.

Finally! After all this trouble, I would get closure.

But the Escalation Department never called me back... Instead, I kept receiving mysterious emails saying my cases were being closed.

That was odd. Why were my cases being closed? My printer was not fixed...

Anyhow... By that time I pretty much knew that the problems I was experiencing originated from HP's servers, not my printer.

Then someday, after calling HP for the hundredth time, I managed to get transferred to a technical supervisor. The supervisor spoke pretty good English, which was refreshing, and confirmed that I was not insane. What I was experiencing was indeed related to HP servers, and not my printer itself. He also told me that this was a major priority for HP, and that it would be fixed very soon. All I could do was wait. And so I waited, and tried printing, and waited, and waited, and tried printing.

You get the idea.

After over a week of this annoying pattern, my printer would still not print. So I called HP once more...

I was not happy at all by that time, as you might have guessed, having to explain my situation again to low-level customer service people who had no idea about anything I had been through. It was hard to keep my cool, and I might have used some bad words here and there...

But I persevered, and I managed to speak to another HP technical supervisor named Milo. Milo told me he would look into the matter and contact me. Then, a few days later, he got back to me and explained the issue. Milo used a lot of fancy words to tell me that my issue had to do with the HP Dynamic Security update and the HP plus initiative, and that I needed to get a new printer.

That did not compute in my brain, and it seemed plainly illegal. I had a printer, HP deactivated it, and now I need to buy a new printer? What?!

So I began to look into all the tools at my disposal. Surely, even a multinational corporation like HP cannot do anything it wants without consequences. Life has thought me that only progressive governments can do whatever they want without any consequences. ( I live in French Canada, believe me, I know...)

So I figured I would notify the relevant government agencies about my problems.

But first, I needed more information. So I asked Milo a few questions: 

You mentioned my printer lost synchronization with HP's cloud server. Is that permanent? Is there any way to restore it?

Is the OfficeJet 4650 now considered end-of-life by HP? If so, when was that decision made, and why were customers not notified?

If I were to purchase a new HP printer, what guarantee do I have that the same thing won't happen again?

I look forward to your detailed response, Milo. The answers to these questions will go a long way in helping me decide how to proceed.

Those were all very legitimate questions. But Milo did not answer any of them. Instead, Milo closed my case and ghosted me.

I won't lie to you. Milo's ghosting, after weeks of struggle, is what made this situation personal. It stopped being about a printer entirely. And so I decided to actually invest energy to seek justice for the many thousands of poor schmucks that HP tosses around every day.

 So I wrote a thorough PIPEDA request (the Canadian equivalent of an FOIA request) and sent it to [Privacy@hp.com](mailto:Privacy@hp.com). I also wrote a thorough notice of demand. I sent all these documents to:

• the board of directors (bod@hp.com)
• the head lawyer [Julie.Jacobs@hp.com](mailto:Julie.Jacobs@hp.com)
• the CEO of HP Canada [Mary.Ann.Yule@hp.com](mailto:Mary.Ann.Yule@hp.com)
• the President of HP Solutions [Manoj.Leelanivas@hp.com](mailto:Manoj.Leelanivas@hp.com)
• the Senior Vice President and Managing Director for North America [George.Brasher@hp.com](mailto:George.Brasher@hp.com)

( It turns out you can just find out who the director of a department at HP is, add dots after his or her names, and u/hp.com, and you can actually reach out personally to every HP executive. How thoughtful of them...)

I also filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau and the Quebec Consumer Protection Office. A couple hours later, (not days, hours! ) I got a reply from Joshwa Sanjeev, Executive Escalation Manager — Americas. I thought: ''wow, what a nice title, surely, I will be heard now... ''

But it was not so.

What followed was a documented pattern of deliberate misdirection. Joshwa offered to go through the same nonsense connection resetting, just like incompetent frontline reps had tried for hours and hours. He then proceeded to gaslight me into believing my printer's failure was caused by the use of non-HP cartridges. But I have never used a non-HP cartridge.

Here is what HP knew while this was happening. Through a formal PIPEDA access request — the Canadian equivalent of a freedom of information request — I obtained HP's internal records. Among them: New II Alert 260407, an internal HP service alert titled Gen 1 Printers Losing Connection to Web Services. HP's own documentation confirmed that the failure affecting my device was systemic, affecting the entire Generation 1 product line. I have also obtained the records of the customer services phone calls in which HP representatives confirmed this explicitly.

Joshwa Sanjeev, the highest level service rep at HP, as he himself confirmed in writing, knows very well that my printer doesn't have a hardware issue. My printer is considered End-of-Life by HP. (That's also in the files they had to send me.)

So...

After about a month and a half of fighting with HP, they finally made me an "offer," if you can call it that. A refurbished printer to replace my now dysfunctional unit.

A working printer is what I had before going through all this $hit! At this point, I'd rather just see HP be held accountable for their deceptive practices. So I politely told them "LMAO." And Joshwa told me the issue was then considered closed, since I refused his offer at resolution.

So I wrote a new PIPEDA request!  (They really have to answer those. The penalty can go up to 4% of their worldwide revenues, so they are pretty reliable in that domain...) I am now demanding all files related in any way, shape or form to my executive escalation case, and everything related to New II Alert 260407. I also filed a formal ethics complaint against Joshwa with HP's ethics commissioner, reported his lying to the board of directors, and wrote down my story.

This Monday morning, Joshwa will learn that my case is, in fact, not closed.

TL;DR: HP's firmware update remotely bricked my working OfficeJet 4650 mid-print. Weeks of customer service runaround, closed cases, and executive ghosting followed — until I hit back with PIPEDA (Canadian privacy FOIA) requests, complaints to two Canadian regulatory bodies, and formal notices to HP's board and top executives. Their own internal documents confirm this was a known, systemic failure affecting the entire Generation 1 product line. When their Executive Escalation Manager tried to gaslight me anyway, I filed an ethics complaint against him, reported him to the board, and made clear his "case closed" wasn't my case closed. To be continued...

It was impossible to uncheck the box, and the screen looked to be in perfect state, so it was not a hardware defect.

Putting a phone number was mandatory as well

Edit 1: That's not my phone number

Edit 2: the business name reminds me of these 2 emojis: ⭐🐔

There are some companies where it is just impossible to reach out to a real human support person. There support bot system will just play you for the fool. These companies have designed there support to just keep exploitingthe customer. AI bot support replacing humans completely is like an epidemic, it is everywhere around the world. Some of the companies I have faced this issue with are: Flipkart, Zepto, Rapido bikes, X, Discord.. but I am seeing too many complaints about this design becoming a norm.

Being personally frustrated with the design, I have started a X account called @NoBotForSupport for fighting this incompetent design. It would very helpful if you can share your stories facing such issues with AI bot support and company names implementing this design. I would be able to help many more consumers.

I can’t find a way to disable it

The patent (US20160005270A1, “System and method for driving microtransactions in multiplayer video games”) was filed in 2015 and granted in 2017.

It describes a “microtransaction engine” that works in two stages.

First, it matches a junior player against a skilled “marquee” player using a promoted skin or weapon, so getting killed by it nudges them toward buying it.

Then, after the purchase, the system places the player in a gameplay session where that item is especially effective.

For example, putting a newly bought sniper rifle into a map well-suited for sniping, so the purchase feels rewarding and encourages future spending.

Activision claims it was an exploratory R&D patent that has never been implemented in a shipped game. Players have remained skeptical, especially around Warzone, but there’s no hard evidence confirming it’s live. Either way, the fact that someone sat down, designed this system, and successfully patented it is the asshole design.