I spent years in marketing learning tactics that work. Countdown timers that reset. "Only 3 left!" messages on products with infinite inventory. Exit-intent popups that interrupt you mid-thought. Notification badges designed to create anxiety.
They work. I'm not going to pretend they don't.
But working isn't the same as right. And at some point, you have to ask what kind of company you're building when your growth strategy depends on manipulating people.
The Dark Pattern Playbook
If you've spent any time online, you've encountered dark patterns. Maybe you didn't know the name, but you've felt the manipulation:
Confirmshaming — "No thanks, I don't want to save money" as the opt-out button, making you feel stupid for declining.
Roach Motels — Easy to sign up, impossible to cancel. Buried settings, required phone calls, endless "are you sure?" prompts.
Misdirection — Big colorful buttons for the thing they want you to click, tiny gray text for the thing you actually want.
Urgency Theater — Fake scarcity, invented deadlines, pressure tactics designed to short-circuit your decision-making.
These patterns share a common assumption: users are obstacles to overcome, not people to serve.
Why We're Not Doing That
Postiller is a one-time purchase. No subscriptions to cancel. No free trials that auto-convert. No need to hide the unsubscribe button because there's nothing to unsubscribe from.
This isn't just pricing philosophy — it changes everything about how we approach marketing.
When you can't rely on trapping people in subscriptions, you have to make something genuinely worth buying. When there's no recurring revenue from confused customers, you have to focus on customers who actually want what you're building.
It's harder. It's also better.
What Honest Marketing Looks Like
Here's what we're actually doing instead:
Clear communication — Our pricing is on the website. Our features are explained straightforwardly. If you can't tell what Postiller does from our homepage, that's our failure, not a strategy.
Respecting attention — We're not going to spam your inbox. When we send emails, they'll contain something worth reading. If they don't, unsubscribe. We made the link easy to find.
Building in public — This blog isn't just content marketing. It's genuine documentation of what we're building and why. Some posts will be useful to you. Some won't. We're okay with that.
Community over audience — An audience is people who consume your content. A community is people who share your values. We'd rather have a smaller community than a larger audience.
The Trust Equation
Here's what dark patterns actually cost you: trust.
Every time you trick someone into clicking the wrong button, they remember. Every fake countdown timer that resets erodes your credibility. Every impossible cancellation flow creates an enemy.
You might hit this quarter's numbers. But you're borrowing against future trust. And trust, once lost, is expensive to rebuild.
We're making the opposite bet. Every clear price, every easy-to-find button, every honest email builds trust. The growth is slower. But it's real.
Building the Right Community
When you don't use manipulation tactics, you attract a different kind of user.
People who buy Postiller have actually decided they want it. They're not confused converts who'll churn next month. They're not trapped customers who resent every interaction. They're people who share our values enough to choose us.
That self-selection matters. Our community isn't everyone who could theoretically use a content creation tool. It's people who care about privacy, who want to own their software, who believe in authentic voice over algorithmic optimization.
Smaller, but aligned. That's a trade we'll make every time.
What This Means in Practice
If you're evaluating Postiller, here's what you can expect from us:
- Pricing that's exactly what it says. No hidden fees.
- Emails only when we have something worth saying.
- A privacy policy that means what it says.
- Support that solves problems, not deflects them.
- Updates that improve the product, not extract more money.
We're not perfect. We'll make mistakes. But we're not trying to trick you, and that's not going to change.
The Long Game
Growth hacking optimizes for short-term metrics. We're optimizing for something else: building a company we're proud of.
Ten years from now, I want to look back at how we built this community and feel good about it. I want to know we never manipulated anyone into buying something they didn't want. I want to know our users trust us because we earned it.
That's not a marketing strategy. It's a value. And values don't have conversion rates — they have consequences.
We're ready for those consequences.