http://dx.doi.org/10.17176/20230519-140446-0 https://verfassungsblog.de/free-lunch/ Digesting the (Not So) Free Lunches of Social Media - ‘Dark Patterns’ and Party Autonomy Grigoleit, Hans Christoph eng 2023-05-19 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 Autonomy Big Tech Consumer Protection Consumer Protection Law Contract Law dark patterns freemium Platform Governance Platform Regulation Platforms Radical Reforms Social Media Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-SA 4.0 It has become common wisdom that “there is no such thing as free lunch.” Social media shows us daily how true this observation remains until today. The ‘conventional’ business model of these platforms focuses on data exploitation, and, increasingly, ‘freemium’ models. While it is obviously worthwhile to explore objectionable business practices in e-commerce and on social media, as 'freemium' models gain traction, this contribution suggests that the discourse on ‘dark patterns’ is somewhat sketchy and incomplete – and in need of more specificity.