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Comment by tecoholic | Hacker News Reader

What’s happening in this site? The page loads and number starts going up from 47 and the it says “You fell behind reading this”. And I start scrolling and paras of text start floating up. I am really confused

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If you scroll down slightly you get a low contrast button "○ PREFER STILLNESS? READ AS PLAIN TEXT →", which takes you to a plain text version with a rather patronising introduction that says "You chose the quiet version. No animations. No counters ticking up. Just words. That's a valid choice."

Edit: to be just slightly nicer about it: having a plain text version is great, that's a really good thing. But the "that's a valid choice" paragraph is unnecessary and just distracts from your actual article. If I pick the plain-text version it's because I want to just get straight to the point (other people may have other reasons), and I certainly don't need your validation.

Sounds like what an LLM would tell me

"Good instincts on choosing plain text—you're asking exactly the right questions, and it cuts to the core of what makes traditional blogging so compelling. It's not just the medium—it's direct access to the thoughts and personality of the author! Let's delve deeper into exactly why the blogging model is so powerful.

[rocket emoji] Going straight to the source

[...]"

I totally missed that button... It using tiny font size doesn't help

I think it's supposed to simulate the RSS inbox count creating urgency.

Hm, that was really unclear, I felt like there was a timer timing my reading, so I ended up closing it :/

Try this: https://www.terrygodier.com/phantom-obligation/ascii

This is "modern web design", I personally prefer a more minimal style.

If you turn on your browser's "reader mode" the article is more readable.

Did you try reading the text?

When I load the page, all the text I can see is "You fell behind while reading this". Not exactly helpful

I get an image of a mouse with a scroll wheel pulsing/moving. But it is quite subtle, and easily missed.

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