Growth at what cost? Balancing user experience and revenue

(Without losing your soul)

Everyone working on growing a business eventually runs into the uncomfortable question: Do we chase revenue at all costs, or focus on creating amazing user experiences and hope the money follows?

Your knee-jerk reaction might be, “User experience, obviously.” But if you’ve spent any time in product, marketing, or growth, you know it’s not that simple. There’s a constant, very real tension between doing what’s best for the user and doing what’s best for the bottom line - it’s the classic push and pull we wrestle with every day.

And here’s the real question: At what point do these well-intentioned growth efforts start becoming, well...shady?

The psychology behind growth

What we don’t talk about enough is that a big part of our jobs is figuring out user psychology: what makes people tick and what makes them ick. And then using that knowledge to “nudge” them toward clicking that button, signing up, or upgrading.

Most common human emotions that companies leverage are:

• Loss aversion: Reminding people what they’ll “lose” if they don’t upgrade.

• Fear of missing out: “Only 2 days left!”

• Fear of being left behind: Via social proof – “12,394 people signed up this week.”

• Wanting a good deal: “Was $99, now $29!”

• Respect the authority: People are more likely to trust and follow figures of authority. So you’ll see “As seen in Forbes, TechCrunch, and WSJ.” or “Recognized by Gartner”

• Guilt trips: Cough cough that Duolingo owl making you feel terrible for missing a lesson…

Used responsibly, these can help highlight real value. But cross the line, and you’re basically tricking your users into actions they might regret. It’s a slippery slope that “revenue-first” extremes take.

The “revenue-first” extreme

Imagine you prioritize revenue above all else. You will end up leveraging user psychology to create dark patterns in your product.

Dark patterns are sneaky design or UX choices that deliberately confuse or mislead users. We’ve all encountered them:

• Hidden cancellation buttons: Burying the “Cancel” link on page five of your account settings, then requiring a phone call and a notarized letter to confirm. This has gotten so bad that there are now laws being passed on this subject.

• Forced continuity: A free trial that charges you without a clear reminder.

• Confirmshaming: Guilt-tripping users into opting in, like - “No thanks, I hate saving money.” or “I’ll pass - I don’t like learning new things.”

• Hidden costs: “processing” and “handling” fees that aren’t revealed until the last step of checkout.

• Fake anchoring: “Was $99, now $29!”, even though price has always been $29.

• Countdown timers that lie: Creating fake urgency with “Only 3 hours left!”... then you refresh the page and the timer resets.

• Data hostage: When a platform makes it really hard (or impossible) to export, download, or transfer your own data - essentially holding your content hostage so you’re less likely to leave.

There are many offenders in this category. Will they make money? Yes. But once customers realize the lengths you’ll go to for a buck, they’ll go looking for a friendlier alternative. And let’s be real, the barrier to entry has never been lower. So if you piss off your customers enough, you’re basically begging for the competition to have a field day.

A note about dark patterns:

Most dark patterns aren’t born from malicious intent - they’re symptoms of pressure. Pressure to hit aggressive growth targets, maximize conversion, or retain users at all costs. When KPIs get prioritized over long-term trust, things start to bend. It’s the system, not the individuals, that needs rethinking.

The other extreme: “user-experience-first”

On the other end, you focus on perfect user experiences without any push toward monetization:

• You remove every single upgrade prompt, because you don’t want to “bother” people.

• You prioritize design elegance so much that the actual value proposition becomes an afterthought.

• You refuse to mention pricing, upsells, or anything to do with money.

Your product might earn rave reviews for being sleek and user-friendly…right up until you run out of funds. No revenue = no business. And no business = no product for your (previously happy) users.

Striking the Balance

As with most things in life, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. You want to:

1. Respect your customers: They’re the reason your product exists in the first place.

2. Deliver real value: Make sure your growth tactics actually help users discover and benefit from your product - rather than tricking them.

3. Stay profitable: You can’t invest in improvements if you can’t keep the lights on.

Your personal threshold for what’s acceptable might differ from your coworker’s or your boss’s - and that’s fine. The key is to have honest conversations about the trade-offs and to remember that a short-term profit boost could lead to a long-term user exodus if it crosses ethical lines.

I follow a very simple rule by asking myself these two questions:

Am I proud of the experience we’ve created?
Can I stand behind this decision?

In other words, my barometer is knowing that I’ll have to make some compromises - but it is a non-negotiable for me to proudly stand behind my work, confident that I did right by both the user and the business.

So before you roll out that shady upsell or hide the cancel button like it’s in a witness protection program, ask yourself: Am I genuinely proud of the experience we’ve created? If the answer is no, congrats - you’ve probably just stumbled across the line between solid growth and a dark pattern.

Let’s aim to grow responsibly and keep things on the brighter side, yeah?