This is a community for designs specifically crafted to make the experience worse for the user. This can be due to greed, apathy, laziness or just downright scumbaggery.
At the risk of downvote oblivion, I'm gonna say that's not asshole design. They're offering a reward system, and having advertising as an inseparable part of that doesn't seem unethical.
Don't get me wrong, advertising as a general industry is deplorable. But this seems at least somewhat reasonable (especially considering how easy it is to filter emails to junk).
Based on my experience when I was still buying Domino’s, these emails that you can’t opt out of aren’t even ads. “Status of your account and points total” is what it says on the tin. It’s not promotional offers or spam, it’s information pertinent to your account meaning it’s rare.
This might have changed in the years since I stopped using Domino’s so YMMV.
I regularly send emails to spam that say something along the lines of "Hey, you have free dominos" because I could redeem 20 points for a free ranch dressing. I also get emails about whatever deal they decide to have that week.
I can't fix that cause I need 60 for the pizza, the 20 is gonna sit idle.
Also while I'm bringing it up, 20 for a sauce? Hell no. 10 would be too high.
But yeah, they're annoying, but within reason for a rewards program, I do get something from this.
Hey I'm just checking in with your account status. Definitely just that, not hoping you'll but anything...
All emails companies send you are designed to get you to spend money.
It's an ad.
Of course if that ad comes with a discount I might not be unhappy to get it. But if a(n) ~~status message~~ ad comes in reminding me of pizza and it's on a day they want me to pay full price for dominos. Then I don't want that message.
Either I'll feel hungrier or poorer.
Their system needs to provide more value than it does then.
That's a fair argument
Value is subjective.
It's eminently quantifiable, actually. One dollar equals one dollar for example.
I agree. Also you can just use filters 🤷
Not really a smart move on their part as that will lead to a lot of people marking them as spam. There are a few legit companies I’ve subscribed to and their messages end up in gmail spam because people use that instead of just unsubscribing.
That would be my first thought. Just mark as spam and keep your rewards.
Could always just mark the emails as spam.
This is why I heavily use email aliases, as well as a catch-all. I use a different alias for each service or website I need to sign up for.
That way if they sell or leak my info, I know exactly who did. And if they pull some bullshit like this, I add the alias to a sieve filter, and they can get bent.
I've got a couple hundred aliases now and I've only caught a couple, and both were basically like "xyz gave us your email address" like they didn't even care if you knew.
Account status and points totals could be viewed as essential communication.
I used a service that used email as MFA, but they also used the same mail service for marketing. When I opted out of marketing they stopped sending me my login emails :/
What jerks
Luckily we're power users and we can set automated filters that deletes every email from dominos.com
Red Robin does the same. I once posted about it on the old place and people took their side also. Best you can do is set up a rule and send them straight to trash.
Wish goes even further, if you unsubscribe from their incessant emails hawking junk at you, they lock your account. Without even notifying you; your password just mysteriously stops working.
Every fucking day I have three companies email me to order pizza, usually within fifteen minutes of each other.
Too expensive, I make my own pizza if I want it.