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Comment by nkozyra | Hacker News Reader

For some reason this seems to be the go-to "show 'em" methodology. I think people, in general, understand what slower means.

I mean this is cute but I think this might be the fourth or fifth implementation I've seen and they all have better likelihood of just annoying someone instead of educating them.

I realize a standardized alert message delivered via JS doesn't have the same "share-able" impact, but it's probably more effective overall.

I'm imagining Wikipedia's fundraising drives and whether they'd do as well if they just blurred out a large portion of every article to raise awareness versus a prominent message.

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We are considering an option that blurs out the page instead. Also - we'll add more context to the page.

I think you may have missed my point there.

If we made a version that stripped out the slowdown effect and just had the action ask, would you run that?

Our impression (and experience) is that people get more excited about doing something symbolic.

Again, any direct recommendations about how to improve this, and we'll improve it :)

You're asking about the efficacy of passive messaging - I don't think it would work if you asked people. Likewise, I think simply doing it is more likely to annoy people than incite passion.

Visibility is the issue, not understanding the problem. I think the message of "the internet could be slower without net neutrality" is the one that needs to be delivered. People generally know what "slower" means.

As I mentioned, a standardized message would probably be more effective, but it's also not something that would be particularly exciting to share on, say, Hacker News.

I daresay annoying people is the whole point. Combine that with the logo example given upthread, and you've got a very effective campaign going on. What I see happening:

"Why do I keep getting this bloody message with Comcast's logo on it every time I hit random websites? readreadread Fucking Comcast at it again.."

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