All Articles
12 storiesLoyalty Programs Are Addiction Systems With a Points Interface
You are not earning rewards. You are being trained to return. The points are Pavlov's bell. You are the dog.
The Fake Discount Economy: How Retail Pricing Is Pure Theatre
The original price was invented specifically to be crossed out. The sale price is the real price. You knew this. You still felt like you got a deal.
How Brands Manufacture Nostalgia to Bypass Your Brain
You do not miss the product. You miss the feeling. Brands know this, and they have spent decades learning how to rent that feeling and attach it to something you can buy.
Dark Patterns: The Design Crimes Hidden in Plain Sight
The unsubscribe button that takes 11 clicks. The pre-ticked donation box. The cancellation flow designed to make you give up. This is not bad design. It is very good design, pointed at you.
Influencer Marketing Is Paid Lying at Scale
She is not recommending that face wash because she uses it. She is recommending it because she was paid Rs 80,000 to say she uses it. The disclosure is in the caption. You are not reading the caption.
The Limited Time Offer Is Almost Always a Lie
That countdown timer is not counting down to anything. The sale does not end tonight. And they know you know this. It still works.
Why Brands Want You to Feel, Not Think
Rational arguments can be argued with. Emotions cannot. This is the most important sentence in modern marketing.
The 7 Psychological Tricks Every Ad Uses on You (And Why They Work)
You think you choose what you buy. You do not. Here is the playbook advertisers have been running on your brain for decades.
Why We Give Up on Everything Except Love
We quit guitars, businesses, and diets after a few failures. But heartbreak after heartbreak, we keep going back. The reasons are biological, psychological, and more rational than they look.
Why Religious Extremism Is Rising in the Most Educated Generation in History
We have more education, more technology, and more access to information than any generation before us. So why is religious extremism growing? The answer says more about modernity than it does about religion.
Why People Always Think They Are the Smartest Person in the Room
Using people requires one prerequisite: believing they will not notice. Here is the psychology of why manipulators always underestimate the people around them, and why they are almost always wrong.
Why Being Right Feels Better Than Being Happy
We would rather win an argument than preserve the relationship we are supposedly fighting for. Here is the psychology behind why.