How I Experience Web Today (2021)
how-i-experience-web-today.com
how-i-experience-web-today.com
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> Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine — no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter.
> Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit.
Google is the modern-day Yellow Pages; kill some trees and slam that rainwater-soaked stack of ads on my porch. I won't say no to free, but how many hoops did we go through to end up back here?
Enables you to become exactly what you got successful for NOT being. Must be great.
/s
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.
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.
You've got a fulfilling career in product management ahead of you!
- 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.
Could we do something similar but for top level DOM?
IIRC, this `about:config` setting is how I disable Firefox Reader Mode: `reader.parse-on-load.enabled` = false
Frustrating since their "remove distracting elements" feature was a great value-add, done in the same update.
Seems to me reader mode is a great idea but needs some dynamic behavior so sites can't break it.
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.
or less heavy on the annoyances than the average news site for now
What can you do as a publisher of web content other than compete with the big dogs on Display Ads (what this link is complaining about, that's why they request your data in the first place) or try to enforce paywalls (also what this link is complaining about, ironically)? Supposedly some parts of the internet work off of affiliate marketing, such as the few oddball companies that prop up the podcast space for the rest of us, but that seems A) terrible for consumers and B) incredibly hard to make a living with. For better or worse (worse!) we've trained ourselves to expect internet publishers to survive off of Display Ads alone, and act like we've been betrayed when someone links https://businessinsider.com, https://nytimes.com, or another paywalled site to Hacker News.
We're at a crossroads in history, my friends. We can, and must, change this. Substack is a beautiful step in the right direction, but real change must come with societal buy-in (AKA no more archive links on HN) and governmental intervention (AKA follow through on the US DOJ's recent threats to break up Google).
There's no way in hell that any of us would accept the business model of "we'll emotionally manipulate you into buying stuff you don't really want" if we didn't grow up with it -- for anything, but especially for something as vital as journalism. I sincerely doubt Paul Graham could defend it, yet here we are; any paywalled link is removed as a matter of policy, even the fancy new Substack ones that have a few paragraphs of pre-paywall content.
Then the companies who took over browser development didn't care about having a monetization/identification part to it because they didn't have content to monetize and didn't need to have their users pay for it either.
Then Google took over with their naive optimism around values of freedom and just went with ads as a "solution" to finance their whole operation in order to keep the ideal of free (ideals are always dangerous).
Now we are in a terrible situation where there is still no integrated (micro)payment nor identity system into the web browser and thus we have a seriously fucked up dichotomy: either you have content with gazillions of ads that are "free" or you have content that is only accessible with a monthly subscription, generally priced higher than what good press used to cost (which makes no sense).
This is really a problem because if you can't access everything "a la carte" web browsing is a bit pointless, being barely better than accessing media at the library or your local press stand (in fact when you count DRM issues and lack of lasting physical product, you could argue that its worse).
In my opinion the whole point of the web is that not all content is uniformly valuable in the same way to everyone. And you can't ask someone with varying interests and varying time for said interest to pay for multiple subscription to multiple sources. And this is exactly why everything resort to ads: you can't have that many people pay subscriptions because it doesn't bring enough value to them but you also can't sell per unit because it's way too complicated/annoying for the customer to do; so, you use ads.
That being said, we should make some regulations around ad use because it's pretty obvious that some of the tech giants would not exist as they are if people really had to pay for their products. Ad use in those platforms is a pretty clear attempt at avoiding competition, you don't have to compete much if you are "free" after all (Google speciality).
When I get a page like that now I’ve learned that there probably isn’t anything worth reading.
It’s sort of like if an annoying or obnoxious person approaches me on the street… I just walk away! What could they possibly have to say to me that could be so important?
And I have noticed the same with Web sites… this type of low-quality behavior correlates strongly with low-quality content, which also adds nothing to my life. So by immediately leaving, I am not only saving myself from aggravation, I am also saving myself from wasting time on fluff pieces, useless studies, clickbait, etc.
I highly recommend this strategy, because it has transformed the Web for me into once again being usable and useful.
(I still use an ad blocker for security reasons.)
The feature lets you select offending blocks which are deleted from the page. The feature remembers the items you deleted on re-visit, too.
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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?
The lack of diverse monetization models is forcing web sites to maximize for annoying-but-not-too-annoying.
I'm waiting for a browser where I can collect gummy points by going to web sites with ads that I can then exchange for my chosen ad-free web content.
Just one example of how we can regain control over content with content-creators and infra operators getting their fair share.
I think some years ago, I may have had a flag set on my account which stops me getting ads. In the past I've given security@twitch a heads-up about some minor vulnerabilities, so perhaps it was a gesture of good will from twitch.
It may also have been a freak case of falling between the cracks when having "twitch prime" transitioned from ad-free viewing across all twitch to not doing so.
It took me years to realise that I don't see adverts on twitch when I "should", and I don't fully understand why not. I'm not sure who even at twitch I would report it to, as it doesn't feel like a security issue.
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.
IMO the best outcome of GDPR wasn't the blocking of any significant number of cookies, but rather raising public awareness that these sites are collecting "non-vital" information in the first place. Why do we allow that, ever, in any way? If I started paying to put up facial recognition cameras in every restaurant and store in town to build my own little omniscient tracker of my fellow citizens, I think I'd be run out with pitchforks and torches. But somehow it's okay when ~~it's on the internet~~ when Google insists that it's a necessary evil...
That I keep seeing this bullshit repeated it tells me that "technical people" are not as smart as they think they are.
Well done.
This is all I see.
I take it that my ad blocking plugins and security settings are working then.
It’s this type of foolishness that has turned me so trigger-happy with that “X” button. I close tabs so quickly nowadays that I sometimes forget why I even visited a website in the first place, and I usually end up having to right-click and click “Reopen closed tab” to go back once I remember why.
The cookie pop-ups are especially annoying—no, I don’t want your cookies!
Of course, that is besides the point, but I am surprised not everyone here has a setup like this.
Even on your silly site I accidentally clicked allow because of the buttons switching to default positions I’m not used to.
I don't remember, when I saw an ad on web on any home device last time.
Other thing missing is "Your browser doesn't support <foo>".
Also, there are too few ads.
Anyway, great site!
Slightly disappointed I did not see the ubiquitous "Sign in with Google" popup in the upper right corner, nor comments full of spam.
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?
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/)
On the internet as a whole, I do mostly lurk, but I have my own website where I try to post meaningful, useful content. To me, that's enough to have paid my dues. If you never, ever post anything. Yeah, paying is fair, but so long as you contribute back, you've paid, IMHO.
This gets tricky only because the web isn't small anymore. Youtube, for hosting, should probably get a cut, yeah. But the majority? no. The ability to monetize something someone else made and wants to distribute for free? Also no. They, IMHO, abused their way to near monopoly on video distribution, so they shouldn't have that right.
Similarly, I won't pay for content when I'm creating my own and distributing it for free (Actually, to some cost to me) and without ads.
Saying "Well, then only consume other's free content" is a fair rebuttal, but there's a larger social/societal problem that incentives making paid content or using platforms like YouTube which will monetize content made by anyone even if the creator never sees a Penny: The dominance of those platforms has stifled innovation to the point of depriving them of a real choice. (Again, opinion. Don't sue me Google <3)
By using adblock, I'm willfully, intentionally hurting that perverse incentive system.
It's a similar vibe to the idea that piracy may be moral, if it disenticives overbearing DRM. I pay for things when the DRM is non-existant or non-invasive. I've chosen not to when it is. I've let companines know on their forums before that I'd love to buy their product, if only they didn't use iLok, or Denuvo, etc. I usually don't pirate though, I just find an alternative, even if I think they have the better product and would otherwise be willing to pay.
I actually agree with this viewpoint, it makes me think of Peter Serafinowicz's why I steal movies article https://gizmodo.com/why-i-steal-movies-even-ones-im-in-55394...
however - I'm not sure if Serafinowicz would think that some guy on the internet writing articles is actually contributing back in the same way he might feel if you were distributing your own short comedic videos.
You may be contributing in a distribution channel, but are you contributing in a media?
The same goes for authors etc. They may think other authors should get a free pass on buying their books, because they're contributing, but not think that someone writing fan fiction on the web should get a pass.
The same with musicians, I'm sure you get the point. An artist in some field might think you are contributing if you are producing work in their field and should be given a pass on paying (I certainly would) but posting some meaningful to you on the web might not pass the bar of what they consider a contribution.
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.
uBlock Origin everywhere. Steven Black host list on everything that can use /etc/hosts. Subscriptions to the things I value (but not to all the things I read).
I run an open source project called Ardour. One of our mottos is "It doesn't matter if everybody pays, it only matters than enough people pay". I wish more people could make some effort try to follow this idea in some way.
In such a market, the business is disincentivized to produce thoughtful content, and need to churn the bait the draw in the audience. So it isn't as if creators are being compensated for creating, and instead content producers are compensated for producing words that will lure in readers.
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.
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.
- 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.)
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.
(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.)
Saying "you want to use an adblocker, thus you're just a thief!" can validly be escalated with the exact same logic by saying "why don't you click on every ad you see, that's the only way the benevolent authors get paid you know, if you're not doing that then you're just a thief!" It's all nonsense fundamentally because the audience consuming your content for free doesn't owe the author anything (as much as authors in this scenario will wish otherwise).
To be clear, making content explicitly for-pay I think is amazing and is the clear future. As ads race to be as annoying as possible, users are going to run out of patience and seek alternative sources of information/entertainment, and some number of users will opt for sources that require payment. That's GREAT for the industry as it means users stop expecting everything for free and become selective with their dollar, allowing niche content much more money. This is happening with many small-time independent video publishing platforms (Dropout.tv, Nebula, Floatplane, CorridorDigital, countless creators on Patreon, independent movies published via VHX.tv, etc) to fantastic effect.