I'm torn on this. First, yes, I find locked items obnoxious. Still not happy that the easy to find nasal medicine in many stores was found to be garbage.
That said, by the numbers here, it isn't clear how often people succeed at buying the item in another store. For a truly hilarious spin, you could think that having the item out where folks can touch things is itself the dark pattern that is encouraging people to buy things they don't need.
> Still not happy that the easy to find nasal medicine in many stores was found to be garbage.
At least with pseudoephedrine you can just walk up to the pharmacy and say ‘sell me as many generic pseudoephedrine tablets as I’m allowed to purchase’, sign the FDA log, and pay for it.
That said, by the numbers here, it isn't clear how often people succeed at buying the item in another store. For a truly hilarious spin, you could think that having the item out where folks can touch things is itself the dark pattern that is encouraging people to buy things they don't need.