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Comment by djinnandtonic | Hacker News Reader

This site first nagged me to join their newsletter and then locked the second half of the article behind an email harvester.

This is toxic behavior from a content provider, please do not drive traffic to this site.

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I don't understand this reasoning which I ultimately write off as entitlement.

They produced the content. They think it's valuable enough to put behind an (annoying) interaction that allows them to grow their newsletter. You don't think it's that valuable and you don't even want to find out if it is or not. That's 100% fine. Just don't read the article. It's not your content, and you're not entitled to an ad-free version of it just because you're on the internet.

It's not your site. It's not your content.

But then you go and call the site "toxic" and call for a boycott? On what basis? If the content is actually good, then I personally would be inclined to support the site.

I'm not entitled to an ad-free version, but equally they're not entitled to my attention, or my email address. In an ideal world we give each other a bit of value and everyone comes out ahead, but if one side takes the piss it's entirely reasonable for the other side to call them out on it, refuse to participate, and highlight their behaviour for others.

Um, you give them your attention when you click their link. They aren't entitled, you gave it away.

In exchange for the promise of an interesting article, which they have failed to deliver on.

That's called buyers remorse. When a product or service fails to meet your expectations sometime it's just crap, not toxic.

It's amazing how much anger/vitriol a small little modal can generate.

Don't you have a back button?

Otherwise if you want the thing someone is offering in a simple quid-pro-quo take the deal or don't.

Otherwise all you a really shouting about is that you think the price is too high.

No it isn't. Buyer's remorse is where you read the whole article and then conclude that you wasted your time. Oh well, too bad.

It's amazing how much anger/vitriol a small little modal can generate.

No it isn't, because if you spend a lot of time in the web you encounter them tens or potentially hundreds of times a day depending on what you're doing. It's an economic externality, just like the one person saying 'but my little bit of pollution won't impact the environment.'

Yes, I have a back button, but if you've wasted my time then I'm going to remember that fact. Semantic/social web technologies are going to make this sort of marketing obsolete.

It's amazing how much anger/vitriol a small little modal can generate.

It may amaze the designer, but it doesn't amaze me as a user.

The fundamental principle of a "modal" is that it suddenly and unexpectedly robs the user of control over his experience. If that's not a cardinal sin of interface design, I don't know what is.

We're often reminded that good design creates "delight"; that also means bad design can create delight's opposite - pain and frustration.

The link did not say "we're going to waste a couple minutes of your time to trick you into becoming invested and not beable to finish the story unless you give us your email."

At least be honest about the situation up front. There was no hint that we would have some portion of the content locked without signing up until i got to the blurred out part. This is somewhat toxic.

At least it's not ad driven, too.

You don't have to give them your email. You can just click 'no', and read the rest. But I agree with your sentiment of not liking that style.

They invited people to read and then inflicted an annoying and unwelcome interaction on them that interrupted what they were invited to do. It's OK to ask for something at the end of the article but not to engage in that sort of bait and switch. Also, it's pretty damn entitled of the many sites which give you a finger-wagging lecture about your ad blocker the first time you ever visit.

Yes, it's toxic to offer an article and then snatch it away mid-way. Try doing that with a small child or an animal and see what sort of reaction you get.

I think it's fair to prefer that such content not be linked here. I don't come here for this sort of content and being duped into reading half the article only to realize later that it's for pay (in information).

They should be upfront about the cost, and it would be nice if articles like this were marked here somehow so those of us who are uninterested in giving out our email to marketers can avoid clicking on the link.

I think that's fine. If as a content distributor, HN wants to ban all such links then that's completely acceptable. And if as a user, you want to blacklist any site that has that kind of experience, that's acceptable too. I'm not against choice or whatever principles people choose to adopt.

What I don't understand is the sentiment that somehow every site must provide you the perfect user experience, high quality content, high production value and high quality research, all for nothing more than your time. I'm sorry but your measly few minutes isn't ultimately that valuable. Feel free to bounce from the site, you're not the intended customer.

And if a site doesn't provide this magical experience for free then people start calling it "toxic", start calling for the execution of the designers, and a boycott of the product.

I mostly see this sentiment on HN - and I bet it's the same group of people that want a decentralized social network...

Also to your last point, while this particular site prompts you for an email, they let you finish reading without you giving them your email. It's just a prompt and as a site, it's not even one of the worse offenders of this practice. It's quite tame and the rest of the reading experience is super clean.

There is a link on the email collection ad that says "Continue without an email address".

It’s still obnoxious behavior that IMO should not be rewarded with a share. On my device, the “ad” was offscreen. Highly suboptimal UX. I saw the "Continue without an email address" prompt and thought “fuck them”, crashing my attention sphere like that. And forcing me to scroll-scan to get my place back. The web is full of startup how to stories; I’ll just wait for the next one to pop up on HN.

I mean that's fair enough, but do you have the same complaint about companies like NYTimes or other paywalled content? I only mentioned it because numerous people seemed to be very offended by it which seemed a bit odd to me considering you can just close it, but maybe that's just me.

> do you have the same complaint about companies like NYTimes or other paywalled content?

Not the person you're responding to, but: yes, of course.

NYT doesn’t force me to lose my place in the middle of reading. They have the mini bar at the bottom and when you’re out of free reads for the month, they are up front about it and don’t let you read a word. They also don’t offer to spam me in exchange for reading the article.

I wonder if the nascent web annotations protocol offers a vector for pre-emptively flagging this sort of crap.

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