Sneaky website registration tactics

I’m annoyed about a practice that has been gaining ground over the past few years, and I’d like to know how you feel about it. I’m talking about the practice of secretly getting your visitors to “invest” in your site before you tell them that they need to register. I’m torn because:

1) As a user, I can sense it coming and I absolutely DESPISE it,

2) But as a developer, I know that it has incredible merit.

Let’s take Amazon’s Askville.com as an example. Askville is trying to jump on the bandwagon of the current crop of popular “question and answer” websites like Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, etc.

So I run across the site and think see this right on the front page. Okay cool, so I can just ask a question. This seems almost too easy. Notice that the submit button is labeled “Ask the Community”. This implies that I am going to immediately do that.

Oh wait, what’s this? On the next page they ask you to expand upon your question by providing additional details. Okay fine. I can provide context to my question, which is a good thing. That should help users understand my question.

Still not there yet. On the third page they ask you to provide a couple of categories for your question. Sounds reasonable.

But notice the labels on the page… “Last Step” appears at the top. And the submit button is labeled “Ask the Community“. Okay finally! I’ll ask!

Crap! I knew it! I’m not really asking the community anything. I’m being asked to register for the site. Where the hell did this come from?

Did they ever mention that I needed to register for their site to ask a question? This was their sneaky little plan all along. They wanted me to make the investment before asking me to join. This amounts to nothing more than a slimy sales tactic. It makes me want to repeatedly punch them in the neck. It’s a thinly veiled attempt at user deception that I do not appreciate.

I did not ask my question. Screw them.