[HN Gopher] How I Experience Web Today (2021)
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How I Experience Web Today (2021)
Author : airstrike
Score : 219 points
Date : 2024-10-14 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (how-i-experience-web-today.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (how-i-experience-web-today.com)
| hyperhello wrote:
| Great parody that isn't a parody.
|
| When I get a page like that now I've learned that there probably
| isn't anything worth reading.
| Vermyndax wrote:
| This has been my mental shift as well. I also decide this when
| someone tells me the site only works in Chrome, so I should
| switch to Chrome. No, thanks.
| sonofhans wrote:
| This is too real. Even to the point where it barely works at all
| with ad blockers on. Without ad blockers it's like fingernails on
| a chalkboard, just like the web is.
|
| At this point I have so many different content-blocking
| extensions running, trying to trim this crap off my screen, that
| they sometimes conflict and break things. And still crap gets
| through.
| cle wrote:
| It's even worse than that, first Google will bug you to use
| Chrome, then bug you to login, then after your search the browser
| will pop up "Google would like to use your current location". And
| then the first half-page of results are ads. And half of the
| actual results are AI slop and a helpful AI summary of the slop.
| And that's before you even get to the page.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| > the first half-page of results are ads.
|
| I forget if it was crypto or AI, but not too long ago I put in
| what I would consider a "normie" query and _every single above-
| the-fold result was an ad_. Every single one.
| dylanowen wrote:
| Time to switch to kagi.com
| whichdan wrote:
| Oh, don't forget, if you click "Allow (current location)" it
| will also reload the page.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Getting to the final page was a good reminder of the new "Hide
| Distracting Items" in the latest macOS Safari.
|
| The feature lets you select offending blocks which are deleted
| from the page. The feature remembers the items you deleted on re-
| visit, too.
| blackhaj7 wrote:
| Spot on!
| Bulbasaur2015 wrote:
| This is so funny
| beretguy wrote:
| Am i missing something is this text:
|
| ===
|
| I search something
|
| https://example.com Then it shows me something Example Domain.
| This domain is for use in illustrative examples in documents. You
| may use this domain in literature without prior coordination or
| asking for ...
|
| ===
|
| And the rest of the page is blank white. I'm not seeing anything
| else. What is everybody talking about?
| hosh wrote:
| When you click on the example.com link, it takes you to a page
| within the site that shows a bunch of blurred out content, a
| "Accept Cookie" footer. If you try to leave, it asks you if you
| really want to leave.
| beretguy wrote:
| Ah. Thank you. I clicked, saw "text placeholder", scrolled
| down, got that email pop up and that's it. I guess my ad
| blocking/coockie/dns stuff is working.
| CalRobert wrote:
| click on it
| anyfoo wrote:
| What I always don't understand is: So you don't want to pay for
| online content, but you also want to use an ad blocker. In
| summary, you don't want the author or creator to get paid?
|
| Personally, I hate ads, so I pay. I have digital subscriptions to
| the newspapers I read. I have YouTube Premium (because I spend an
| ungodly amount of time on that site).
|
| But for people who want to do neither... what's your idea?
| hosh wrote:
| There is a whole lot more to this than just whether content
| creators or publishes should get paid, and whether there should
| be ad blockers (and whether they get paid).
|
| There are people who have been fed up by this because they
| remembered how the web was like in the late 90s, before social
| media pushes became the dominant experience. People have
| formulated ideas around the Small Web
| (https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-small-web-is-beautiful/), or
| even opted out of the browser ecosystem entirely with Gemini
| (https://geminiprotocol.net/) or keep the torch burning for
| Gopher (https://hackaday.com/2021/09/28/gopher-the-competing-
| standar...)
|
| From there, it is also a short hop and skip away to folks
| working on local-first (https://localfirstweb.dev/),
| decentralization, collapse computing
| (https://100r.co/site/philosophy.html and
| http://collapseos.org/)
| anyfoo wrote:
| I get that, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
| people whose job content is, and who may have had the same
| job in the 90s, e.g. newspaper journalists.
|
| So I'm asking those who don't want to pay for a subscription,
| but want to use an ad blocker: How does it work?
|
| As said, I opted for paying the creator directly, because I
| hate the ad ecosystem. Seems like a lot of people want to do
| neither, but still expect their content to magically exist.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Many of my favourite blogs are ad-free. The people
| behindert it just do it with passion and don't expect
| anything in return. This is in contrast to nrwspapets and
| magazines, which just pump out clickbait shit while bring
| full of ads and tracking. Another option is the
| patreon/twitch model, where people Sonate money to
| creators.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Yes, the irony I have seen with written content is, with
| the exception being books, most paid written content is
| still crap.
| photonthug wrote:
| Lots of us don't want to pay a dime because it's like
| negotiating with terrorists. Do you really expect the
| people that ruined the web to act nice after the first
| round of extortion goes well for them? Many paid services
| still have ads and dark patterns. Those that don't are
| waiting for a position of strength (whether that is a
| market monopoly or just user sunk-cost fallacy to kick in)
| and then the enshittification will start.
|
| My heart goes out to journalists, etc, but I can't really
| help them by paying their bosses because the bosses are not
| interested in journalism. If you think that paying into
| rent-seeking protection rackets is any kind of permanent
| solution you're probably going to be disappointed.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Lots of us don't want to pay a dime because it's like
| negotiating with terrorists.
|
| For a concrete example of the implacable amorality of
| advertising, consider how cable-TV once offered the
| promise of subscribing to end the ads, but still ended up
| showing you ads _and_ demanding a subscription fee
| anyway. Then the same pattern happened again with online
| streaming services and Youtube: Every would-be savior
| keeps getting corrupted by the same darkness.
| masswerk wrote:
| So, what are my ideas?
|
| - static banners (non blinking, no transitions, esp. no
| vertical transitions that are designed to force you to lose
| focus - I've come for the content, not the ads)
|
| - no tracking that exceeds maybe, if you have seen the campaign
| already. Preferably hosted by the website (who is
| responsible?).
|
| - also, no targeting. Ads once were supposed to be consumer
| information. Public information is meant to be public, so I
| would enjoy leaning about what is out there (in the big world).
| Not just being reminded of what I bought last month, over and
| over again. Consumer products are part of (ephemeral) culture
| and I'd like to be part of it. (Reminder: you can always
| select/target by content and context, not just per user
| profile. This is technically feasible, as demonstrated by
| earlier versions of the Web.)
|
| (This is also valid for recommendation and content presentation
| algorithms of all kind: I generally feel like desperately
| gasping for air, while being strangled by algorithms that only
| allow for an ever narrower bandwidth of the ever same. - E.g.,
| is it really true that there are just three videos uploaded to
| YouTube per week? How do they make a profit? So you say, there
| are millions? How I'm not going to see them? Even a text search
| is littered by out of context reminders of the ever same...)
|
| - moreover, ads should be more expensive for the advertising
| party. There should be less in total and the revenue for
| content providers should be greater (remember the thriving blog
| scene, we once had, when bloggers could make a living?)
|
| (In other words, role it back to the early 2000s and I'm fine
| with that. Essentially, before Google ads went on steroids.)
| tmtvl wrote:
| > _ads should be more expensive for the advertising party._
|
| Sorry, my reading comprehension is failing me. If Bob pays
| Google to put an ad on Alice's website, is Bob the
| advertising party? Because if so, that would disadvantage
| small companies and harm the market by making it harder for
| newcomers to be competitive. If in our hypothetical situation
| Google is the advertising party that's good and well, though
| I don't know how we'd get that done.
| masswerk wrote:
| It's about the price of placing an advertisement. Ads
| becoming that cheap has eradicated significant portions of
| the Web, which is now flocking to the few big content
| platforms. I'd call this an anticompetitive development. Ad
| networks, like Google, are setting these prices.
|
| (Also, we - as a society - don't entertain second thoughts
| on housing prices or general cost of living, while this is
| a common and basic need. Why is this different? Is there a
| privilege? Also, who's interest is this about, the content
| creators, including news sites, or advertisers, who rely on
| this kind of contextual content provided by the creators?
| Quite obviously, the current arrangement isn't working out
| for creators, and news, including active journalism and
| research, are in a steep decline, after having peaked in
| revenue around 2008.)
| tmtvl wrote:
| I'm personally fine with ad blocker blockers. They let me make
| an informed choice as to whether I want to accept ads with all
| the bad thing they entail (tracking, potential malware ad/or
| phishing) in exchange for getting whatever information the
| website offers. When YouTube Light was still a thing I did
| subscribe sometimes, but I don't feel as though I get my
| money's worth out of it with the current pricing so I don't
| really go there any more.
| throwaway833884 wrote:
| The thing here is that many of us aren't interested in paid
| content, but we keep getting shuttled to paid content due to
| googles goggles. There is so much free content on the web but
| we don't get directed there because we are stuck in an
| advertising loop. Google intentionally directs us to a site
| with "paid content writers" to propagate their ruin the
| internet with advertising scheme, thereby "ruining the
| internet."
| nickjj wrote:
| My favorite part is how inconvenient it is to only accept
| "necessary" cookies.
| rambambram wrote:
| It also hijacked my Back button for full-on effect, nice.
| mrkramer wrote:
| In another words: UX nightmare!
| mlekoszek wrote:
| The cherry on top was the video player that solely exists to tell
| you "This content is not available in your country"
| s-mon wrote:
| Cookie banners... the most silly idea made by non technical
| people mandated upon technical people. Does anyone remember P3P?
| If that was pushed and managed better it would have solved the
| entire problem.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Cookie banners were not mandated. That was malicious
| compliance.
|
| That I keep seeing this bullshit repeated it tells me that
| "technical people" are not as smart as they think they are.
| s-mon wrote:
| The amount of client-side fetched third party tools fighting for
| the upper layer is so funny and accurate. Intercom + cookie
| settings + a newsletter popup + ads...
| max_ wrote:
| Here is another funny illustration -- https://modem.io/blog/blog-
| monetization/
| marviel wrote:
| I like them both -- but while the OP is excellent satire, this
| one approaches art.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| The CSS on that page is impressive!
| xenic wrote:
| This is glorious, and made me think; is there a reverse-adblock
| addon that would "click" on all ads it finds on a page and
| would load them silently in the background..?
| blargey wrote:
| There's https://adnauseam.io/ (posted to HN a few times
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37230898 )
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Funniest (and most accurate) thing I've seen on the web in a
| while. Thanks for posting!
| pranav_rajs wrote:
| This is brilliant. I'd probably add the notifications to download
| Chrome and ads in Google search to this experience.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Agreed. And the UX for asking ChatGPT the same question is a lot
| more palatable
| alnwlsn wrote:
| Unrealistic. There are far too few ads in between paragraphs.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Also the paragraphs needs those arbitrary phrases which have
| been turned into links to purchase a vaguely-related product
| with a referral code.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| I can't laugh because this is too close for comfort... The only
| thing that's missing is the page scrolling back to the top and
| zooming behaving erratically on mobile due to ads popping in and
| out.
|
| Well done.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| When I tried to leave the page it said "Changes you made may not
| be saved" That was a nice touch
| yaky wrote:
| I chuckled at the "You scrolled!" popup.
|
| Slightly disappointed I did not see the ubiquitous "Sign in with
| Google" popup in the upper right corner, nor comments full of
| spam.
| robofanatic wrote:
| Thanks to that MBA and SEO certificate!
| marcosdumay wrote:
| When the site loses focus, it should move into a useless page and
| show a dialog instead of just showing a dialog.
|
| Also, there are too few ads.
|
| Anyway, great site!
| CM30 wrote:
| Sadly the reality for 99% of blogs and news sites nowadays.
|
| Makes me wonder whether this is part of the reason why social
| media sites, YouTube, etc have taken over as a source of
| information for many people now. Those sites are nightmarish in
| their own right, but they seem to be less heavy on the annoyances
| than the average news site now.
| airstrike wrote:
| > less heavy on the annoyances than the average news site now
|
| or less heavy on the annoyances than the average news site _for
| now_
| mondobe wrote:
| Maybe the quantity of the annoyances don't matter (see
| YouTube's recent anti-ad-blocking shenanigans), but the fact
| that the annoyances are mostly constant and known (at least,
| changing at a much slower rate than you view a new slop
| website) definitely reduces cognitive load.
| masswerk wrote:
| Fun effect: When finally confronted with the page-leave dialog, I
| automatically went for the non-default, grey option button - and
| was kind of surprised that this wasn't the option I wanted.
|
| I've a minor criticism: The "No thanks" button should really be
| "Remind me later" and possibly greyed out, since any negative
| wording is allegedly bad UX and users must be protected from any
| blunt denials in any options. "Maybe later" is also acceptable
| and even empowering, since this places users on equal footing as
| they are now lying to the website just as this is lying to them.
| gffrd wrote:
| > "Maybe later" is also acceptable and even empowering
|
| You've got a fulfilling career in product management ahead of
| you!
| masswerk wrote:
| Hire me! Unfortunately (or is fortunate?), I'm rather bad at
| real-life cynicism. So, no results guaranteed... ;-)
| ahmadtbk wrote:
| we need a how-i-experience-interviews-today
| upupupandaway wrote:
| Great. The only thing missing is the infinite scrolling that
| surreptitiously loads another article to keep you reading,
| thinking you're still with the original article.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| 'cept it's not today is it. It's (2021)
| airstrike wrote:
| Well, technically it's still the case today
| zem wrote:
| I'd say "it's funny because it's true", but this goes all the way
| into "too true to be funny"!
| airstrike wrote:
| The least accurate part of this is that the elements are all too
| quick to respond vs. IRL where every action takes multiple
| seconds to load
| judah wrote:
| This is great. I see:
|
| - Cookie acceptance overlay
|
| - Email prompt when switching away from tab
|
| - Push notification custom UI prompt
|
| - Push notification browser prompt
|
| - Subscribe to our newsletter prompt
|
| - Ad blocker detected modal
|
| - Please subscribe overlay
|
| - Continue reading overlay
|
| - Ratings prompt
|
| - Floating feedback button
|
| - "How can I help you?" chat popup
|
| - Email prompt when scrolling
|
| - Create an account footer
|
| - Interstitial ads
|
| - Social media share buttons
|
| - Click to play video overlay (one that isn't available in your
| country)
|
| - Tab closing prompt
|
| Thinking about this problem technically, most of these
| obscenities are vying for top level. In the early days, browsers
| could detect when a popup was trying to launch and block them.
| Could we do something similar but for top level DOM?
|
| Alternately, could a browser have a quiet mode? No prompts,
| banners, overlays, etc.
|
| Just thinking out loud.
| staplers wrote:
| Could we do something similar but for top level DOM?
|
| It's called "reader mode" on most browsers.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Sadly, development of reader mode seems to be stagnant for
| both Firefox and Chrome. While it works for a substantial
| number of pages, I was hoping that more pages would work as
| years go by. Too bad that doesn't appear to have happened.
| judah wrote:
| Yeah, but it doesn't work for 90% of the sites I try it on.
| And some sites, especially news sites, deliberately break it.
|
| Seems to me reader mode is a great idea but needs some
| dynamic behavior so sites can't break it.
| neilv wrote:
| Unfortunately, Firefox Reader Mode bypasses your uBlock
| Origin, so you get violated by trackers.
|
| IIRC, this `about:config` setting is how I disable Firefox
| Reader Mode: `reader.parse-on-load.enabled` = false
| lambdaba wrote:
| It's funny because working with DNS-level blocking + cookie
| consent + ad blocker the sequence is perfectly fine, I had to go
| back to comments to understand what I was supposed to see.
|
| Of course, that is besides the point, but I am surprised not
| everyone here has a setup like this.
| shombaboor wrote:
| what is considered as the golden era of web browsing? Minimal
| intrusiveness, but decent images/video/readability?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Remember a ~year ago there was a swath of articles popping up
| everywhere, including this site, about how "search is fine
| actually." I'm glad people are noticing how bad it is now, I
| promise it has been this way longer than you realize. It's so
| user hostile it seems comical at times. I completely stopped
| using search and feel like I live in the dark ages now and have
| just accepted that's going to be the foreseeable future until I
| get a new library card.
| joshdavham wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed that the email sign up doesn't seem to
| work. It would be hilarious if it did work and then sent you
| obnoxious email copy haha
| s010c011ab wrote:
| lol
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(page generated 2024-10-14 23:00 UTC)