Ecosystem-Level Manipulation: How Digital Choice Architecture and Dark Patterns Reconfigure Consumer Autonomy in E-Commerce Frameworks

Modern e-commerce ecosystems increasingly leverage advanced behavioral analytics to deploy dynamic digital choice architectures. While choice architecture can optimize user navigation, its subversion into "dark patterns", manipulative user interface designs present a systemic threat to consumer autonomy. This paper conceptualizes and quantifies Ecosystem-Level Manipulation (ELM) within e-commerce platforms. We develop a socio-technical framework to evaluate how systemic dark patterns reconfigure user decision-making processes. Utilizing an empirical choice experiment (N = 1,200), we model the degradation of consumer autonomy using modified discrete choice equations. Our findings indicate that combined dark patterns create a compounding cognitive tax, reducing autonomous choice velocity by 42% and increasing involuntary cart conversions by 68%. Finally, we contribute a set of "De-Biased Design Principles" as an Information Systems Design Theory (ISDT) countermeasure to safeguard consumer agency.