Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #111

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…

Post by Freak_NL » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #2

>If you use Chrome as your main browser, consider switching to Chromium, the open-source version of the browser. Consider minimalist browsers like Min (and choose to block all ads, trackers and scripts) to browser news websites. no love for firefox? or for that matter, any non webkit browsers? >HERE WeGo for maps (free) i'm not sure that's any better in terms of privacy

Post by porsupah » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

livatlantis wrote: post #4

reaperducer wrote: post #3

Irony: The web page that rails about the web being user hostile is coded so that Safari's user-friendly reader mode is disabled.

Author here. Is it? It works on my end. Could you tell me which OS/Safari version you're using? Thanks.

Post by blunte » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #111

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…

Post by cgmg » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

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…