Hacker News Reader

> Isn't Hacker News itself a really great example of a website that successfully uses only very basic html with very, very little styling and fancy extra features?

Hacker News is an aesthetic that would be unacceptable to the majority of businesses in the world. The login page alone would cripple sales on any e-commerce site.

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why do you think that's the case? is it because people will feel 'sketched out' by the bareness and leave?

Yes exactly. Stripe built a whole business on this concept by creating an easy to implement, trustable experience for otherwise dodgy looking small shops. Trust is huge, and a sketchy looking form destroys trust.

So... Are you trying to argue that it's easier today to make an acceptable company website than it was in the 90ies... or that it was easier in the 90ies than it is now?

Neither. I'm arguing that Hacker News is not a good example to use when discussing web development. It's easy to make a site simple when you refuse to implement any features, but that refusal is a luxury most businesses do not have.

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