The phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ was coined by poet Thomas Gray in 1747. In his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" Gray reflected on how carefree schoolboys' lives were because they were unaware of the harsh realities of the life that awaited them.
Today’s world turns ignorance into a weapon, letting hidden code and clever UI rewrite your reality. But governments and regulators have begun to wake up. The questions are if they doing enough and if it's already too late?
Case in point — Amazon Prime:
In September 2025, Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle an FTC lawsuit accusing it of using dark patterns to enroll users in Prime without clear consent and making it hard to cancel.
Internal documents revealed that the company knew many users were confused and had complaints, yet continued using interface designs that obscured cancellation steps and renewal terms.
This high-stakes example shows how the very giant you trust for convenience can use manipulative design to exploit your attention and inertia. We predict this is only the beginning of tech firms being held accountable.
If you use social media you are subjected to deceptive patterns every day. Illustration: Mark Woodward
Some will argue that what you don’t know will not hurt you, but that is certainly not the case with dark patterns because of the potential impact on your life from mental health to job performance.