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Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

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Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#111

Post by DeusExMachina »

blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

If video content would be so "hostile", it would have failed on its own already. People would flock to other places where they can read instead.

I don't buy this idea where everything is always imposed on us by evil corporations.

More and more websites using video to me seems more like a proof that people prefer videos over written content. That's why videos usually autoplay, also on YouTube and Facebook: if a person starts watching and listening, it's much more likely that they will stay instead of closing the page.

We have taught things to each other by talking for as long as hundreds of thousands of years, probably more. By contrast, reading has been common among a large percentage of the population only for a couple of centuries.

We evolved using verbal communication, not written one. Written form has, of course, its advantages, but it does not mean that it's the preferred medium for most people.

Videos and audio are also easier to watch/listen to while you are doing something else like cooking, gardening or commuting. There are a ton of contexts where you cant read, but you can at least listen.

That's why even books are converted into audio formats nowadays.

The fact that a small crowd on HN prefers reading is not the proof that video is "user-hostile". HN is rarely the reflection of the general public.

Although I keep reading a lot of online content or books, lately I have consumed a lot more valuable information in a podcast/video lecture format than in a written one.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#112

Post by dudul »

ataturk wrote: post #26

The part where the author tries to tie Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the user-hostile web is bonkers. People, you have to understand this: There exists a large number of others out there who desperately want government reformed, want more localized control over their lives, and who voted accordingly. It wasn't some trick pulled on them by corporations or Russians manipulating social media. I realize that…

> The part where the author tries to tie Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the user-hostile web is bonkers.

I also thought it was pretty weak of the author to shoehorn these things in his essay. All politicians/parties use "big data" for their campaigns, don't you think the democrats were doing the same thing? And since he's from France, he conveniently forgot to mention the Macron campaign last spring.

This topic is too important to point fingers like that.

I agree with everything else in the post though.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#113

Post by castis »

Santosh83 wrote: post #52
ashark wrote: post #7

The Web was doomed the moment we let Javascript initiate connections and (less significantly) modify form content.

Not really. It was doomed the moment it stopped being a place for mere exchange of information and messages and turned into a marketplace. It is the profit motive that has given rise, directly or indirectly, to every good and bad thing about the modern web. Unfortunately profit motive is completely amoral. And it isn't going away. So what we need are more restrictions and regulations. And a paradigm shift back to doi…

Although I agree with your sentiment, having the government step in on behalf of the internet with more regulations seems like a step backwards.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#114

Post by pattle »

blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

This was my main reason for leaving Facebook, almost every post in my feed seemed to be a video or an image with text in, why not just type the words instead of wasting all that bandwidth?

Generally the value of the content was extremely poor and very click bait-y. My analogy I use is I see using Facebook like eating junk food when I could be spending that time consuming more meaningful content.

I've probably been off Facebook now for a year and I don't miss it one bit.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#115

Post by seangrogg »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #39

This is good, but simplistic. Firstly the downfall in the geocities-web came in many phases: 1. Spam Email Phase 2. Phishing / Nigerian phase 3. Popup phase 4. Autoplaying Flash/ActiveX phase 5. Pagerank phase (forums being ruined until rel=nofollow) Now google, previously the main gateway to discovery, is pretty much useless for discovering new non-commercial content. The way this could go away is only from a market…

I would not call content ranking semi-successful just because it isn't actively being gamed now - there was a time before Google served ads.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#116

Post by mortenjorck »

Exploring the early WWW of 20 years ago, I recall a cautionary sentiment to the effect of "This is all free today, but eventually, they'll charge for everything." It's funny how that came true in a way we never predicted: Everything is still "free," and yet everything is also monetized. Rather than a paywall in front of every website, a hidden "spywall" extracts payment in other forms.

They ended up charging for everything after all, only through an indirect and vastly more complex, opaque, and far-reaching system.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#117

Post by YouAreGreat »

jjawssd wrote: post #84
Santosh83 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It was doomed the moment it stopped being a place for mere exchange of information and messages and turned into a marketplace. It is the profit motive that has given rise, directly or indirectly, to every good and bad thing about the modern web. Unfortunately profit motive is completely amoral. And it isn't going away. So what we need are more restrictions and regulations. And a paradigm shift back to doi…

> So what we need are more restrictions and regulations. Fully disagree. You cannot legislate this problem away.

Advertising tax, privacy law, monopoly breakups.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#118

Post by delecti »

nxsynonym wrote: post #20
blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

Apart from the normal Facebook detractors, this is big part of why I deactivated my account. 95% of content on facebook is now in video format. Aside from the reasons you mentioned, it's also a huge drain on battery and slows the responsiveness of the site down considerably. If I want to see videos, I'll go to youtube or vimeo. Don't force them on me when I'm trying to find quick info.

I cannot remember the last time I saw a video in my facebook feed (in the feed, not directly linked). Maybe your facebook friends were just particularly annoying.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#119

Post by blurbleblurble »

We need web browsers with good local & p2p indexing/search/bookmarking features.

Before I ever touch google, I want my search/address bar to look thoroughly through well organized, locally bookmarked content indexes.

The next stop before Google is indexes I've subscribed to. My friends, family, organizations, libraries, businesses, campaigns, wikipedia, etc.

After that, duckduckgo. If I haven't found it by then, google.

This kind of browser feature could make DAT/ipfs hypertext much more useful.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#120

Post by ptero »

pmoriarty wrote: post #100
DerfNet wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on that second line a bit? I'm curious what features we're currently missing out on compared to decades past.

From a recent thread on "Why kernel development still uses email" : [1] "This is one of the things that web-based forums have yet to get right. Email (and NNTP news) clients from 20 or 30 years ago are far superior in this respect, because they can intelligently deal with threading and folding. These features alone makes large conversations much easier to deal with than on web-forums. To add to that, email (and NNTP…

I cannot agree more. When one is used to thread and folding for email or usenet, the user experience of web mail/forum seems woefully inadequate.

When I first saw that gmail starts a new thread when you change a subject I did not believe it at first; I thought I have made a mistake in replying. Text-based clients of old (tin, pine, etc.) still outperform current monstrosities by a wide margin.

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