The Web Is Becoming Unusable | Hacker News Reader

The Web Is Becoming Unusable

medium.com

36 pointsdonutdan411420 comments

Is the author aware of the irony of posting this on a Medium blog?

Maybe I’m getting too philosophical here, but “be the change you want to see in the world” is really a valuable mentality. If all we do is complain about what others are doing while being unwilling to change our own behavior, it’s not just counterproductive, it’s hypocritical.

[edit] after reading through again, I believe the author is just naive (ignorant, not hypocritical)

Yeah, this case seemed even more extreme than usual. Article starts 'below the fold' and I have a tall display.

Also was below the fold for me, below a medium advertisement. ;-p

Perhaps they could consider instead using neocities [1] for a light-weight site.

[1] - https://neocities.org/

> Second: Ads. Oh, ads. You horrible, horrible little fucking squares of pointless content I wish I could so completely ignore. I wish there was a global browser override to disable ads, powered by Google and Apple. Pay $15/mo to avoid all ads on the web. Payments are made to sites you visit (e.g. Medium style).

Maybe us software engineers with our awesome salaries can afford the $15/month for an ad-free web, but:

1. Many either can't afford this or won't see this as a need, because

2. Many people don't care about ads being there (see also: YouTube Red), so

3. Content generators will continue to post ads, which

4. Are easy to block if you're even mildly technically savvy

I very much doubt the actual value of a typical ad-viewing user is actually $15/month. More like $5 maybe which becomes way more affordable and when you think about it, you're already paying like 10x that (if in the US) for internet access so another $5 for a spam-free experience doesn't seem too bad.

Last I checked I'm paying an absurd markup, much larger than $15/month, on my internet access.

There is only minimal competition as it seems to be nearly impossible for other companies to lay fiber or cable, DSL is too slow, cellular coverage is spotty, and satellite suffers from excessive latency.

The problem doesn't seem to be lack of money paid by internet users, but where it goes.

The cookie issue may be changing. Here is some discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23090393

Also sounds like the author should use an ad blocker.

> We need platforms, tools, and legislation that help guide the web to a future that isn’t complete shit.

Legislation to fix UX? Or to resolve the aforementioned cookie issue? I'm skeptical that legislation is going to make any changes to UX in the direction that the author is wanting.

Posted on Medium...

Brave (or at least the idea of it) seems to satisfy the author's requirements around ads. Then again, so does an ad blocker.

It will come down to people committing to working a little harder to do things "right" in their computing.

Bad technology like this exists in part because people are using it.

We don't need legislation we need public awareness to translate into public action.

Yes, the web is becoming unusable.

What we need are better protocols, file formats, and software. Don't lock into using your software, into complicated file formats, etc.

I set up Gopher, NNTP, etc on my computer, and you can do same if you like to do so.

Consider the possibility that bad protocols which invite abuse are the reason they succeeded versus ‘better’ protocols.

I don't have any problems using it. There are fixes for things that bother me.

What shocks me is how unusable search engines are becoming.

Maybe we need to bring back human-curated directories and webrings.

And extensions that fix unusable web sites like Medium.

What is unusable about them? I often find the information I need pretty easily. I often select last year to get rid of stale information, but that can be optional.

I remember I was susbscribed to a weekly newsletter which showcased side-projects on a bidding basis.

But can't find it/remember the name!

This article is posted behind a paywall. Lol.

Came here to say this. I wish there was an extension which just logged you into a bs account for most sites(excluding some like netflix and gmail) to get around login-walls

On Medium just disable JavaScript. It makes the website pleasing and lightweight.

The is what I call graceful enhancement, or progressive degradation.

> progressive degradation

That’s hilarious! The modern web: what you get when you turn progressive enhancement on its ass.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com