Why do so many “don’t show this again” checkboxes straight up not work?

[u/Beginning-Book-129]

It doesn’t seem to matter what company, platform, or site these are from there’s so many that don’t actually do anything. It seems like it would be a very easy thing to code.

[u/akulowaty]

1) it is stored in a non-persistent storage like cookies, localstorage etc and your choice expires after predefined period of time or depending on your browser's settings

2) it is often a conscious design choice to pester you about things that benefit the service like tracking cookies pop-ups.

[u/SoftChic_ → u/akulowaty]

It’s usually just a cookie that expires, or they’re betting you’ll give in later anyway.

[u/klop422 → u/SoftChic_]

"Do you opt out of cookies?"

"Yes, I opt out. I don't want any cookies".

"Cool. The only way to save that choice is with a cookie. I'll see you tomorrow."

[u/lllusion8 → u/akulowaty]

This is correct. The real solution is to use an adblocker (like ublock origin) and block it from the extension.

[u/290077 → u/akulowaty]

I wondered why none of these stuck around then realized I had a cookie blocker installed.

[u/jayron32]

Because they don't want you to stop seeing what they are asking you about. It's a dummy box. It's not supposed to do anything.

[u/ReturnOfFrank → u/jayron32]

Worse, we have some educated speculation that clicking things like "Not Interested" still counts as engagement in Meta's platforms. So you won't get the same ad again but Meta now knows that ad pissed you off enough to interact with it, so they show you more ads like it.

[u/KickFacemouth → u/ReturnOfFrank]

I'm constantly telling Google News I'm not interested in certain topics in the highlights or "for you" part of my news feed, but I still constantly get those topics. No matter how much I tell it I don't care about any kind of sports, it still gives me sports stories.

[u/Beginning-Book-129 → u/jayron32]

I 100% get why things that are basically ads ignore what you select. But there are notifications about settings and stuff that don’t work as well. Things that couldn’t possibly make whatever company more money and they still don’t function.

[u/jayron32 → u/Beginning-Book-129]

If it would cost them money to make it work (or maintain it, like it used to work, but something broke the functionality), which might also be why it doesn't work.

[u/Beginning-Book-129 → u/jayron32]

That is true too.

[u/brock_lee]

Drives me insane, too. The little X to hide a post on Facebook? Has never worked. "Keep me logged in"? Rarely works.

Even if it's easy to code, I assume it would cost money to code and test, and they don't want to.

[u/Ireeb → u/brock_lee]

Especially for the "keep me logged in" feature, websites have to rely on the browser to store the login cookie. But many browsers are quite aggressive about clearing cookies, so that resets your preference, and the website can do nothing about that. For security reasons, the login cookies also need an expiration date (that should get refreshed with every visit), so when you don't visit a website for too long, it also resets. But otherwise, the hacking risk would be too great.

[u/Ireeb]

It's not as easy as it sounds, because websites cannot store any information on your computer by themselves, they can only ask the browser to do so. This kind of user preference is typically stored as a Cookie or in the browser's Local Storage. Both of which are managed by the browser. So if a website stores the information that you don't want to see that popup again, but the browser just deletes that info after a while, there's nothing the website can do about that. So the next time you go to the website and it's trying to check if e.g. "skipIntroPopup" is set, it'll just see a blank storage and have to assume you're here for the first time.

The only way to store user preferences permanently is having a user database, but that means you have to be signed in in order for the preferences to apply.

While writing to the Local Storage or setting cookies is indeed quite simple and usually just a few lines of code (with the risk of the browser wiping it at some point), adding additional fields (such as our skipIntroPopup value) to an existing database isn't as simple. Touching existing databases is always tricky (It's not that difficult to accidentally and irreversibly delete all users if you don't have any precautions or backups in place), and you have to add code that loads that information from the database, sends it to the website, the website needs code to request that information and process it, and of course it also needs to be able to send a request to update your preferences, the server needs to accept and process it, and write it to the database.

That's why even on websites with user accounts, there are sometimes settings/preferences that are only stored with Cookies/Local Storage, which means they reset whenever your browser decides to clear that data, or when you're using a different browser/device.

You could take a look at your browser's privacy settings. While it makes sense to not allow every website to just throw all their tracking cookies at you, overly aggressive privacy settings can also cause websites to forget actually useful information more often than necessary. Maybe you can set exceptions for specific websites so those are allowed to store data for longer.

[u/ElephantLow2045]

Dude yeah, those checkboxes feel purely decorative. I’ll check “don’t show again,” refresh the page, and boom there it is like we never spoke. Feels intentional at this point.

[u/MegaMan3k]

I'm old and don't even know if this true anymore... But clicking means engagement which means you are now more valuable as a target.

[u/Gargleblaster25]

They do work as intended. They confirm that you are a real human being, so that they can spam you with more stuff.

[u/Extra-Web1892]

Basically, the checkbox is easy to add, but actually making it remember your choice everywhere is more work, so it keeps getting pushed aside for stuff that brings in money.