As I mentioned in another thread, at the end of the day those patterns all boil down to exploiting some asymmetry between the user and the system. For example:

• Users eventually get tired into compliance. The system doesn’t.
• Users are prone to emotional manipulation. The system doesn’t.
• Users don’t have full knowledge of the system. The system does.
• Users can’t dictate the terms. The system does.
• etc.

(“System” in this case means “the product, who designed it, and who sells it”.)