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Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

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Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#161

Post by kfriede »

Thriptic wrote: post #134
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…

> But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation 00:10-2:00 "Hey guys welcome to my channel. Make sure to like and subscribe and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Also make sure to check out [sponsor] and use coupon code [code] for 10% off" 2…

I often feel this way about podcasts. Many great podcasts have a 0:30 intro, 1:30 of ads then 08:00 of random babble before getting into 5:00 of the meat of the podcast. The most recent one I can think of is 99% Invisible, though they're not even close to the only ones that do it.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#162

Post by amiga-workbench »

Thriptic wrote: post #134
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…

> But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation 00:10-2:00 "Hey guys welcome to my channel. Make sure to like and subscribe and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Also make sure to check out [sponsor] and use coupon code [code] for 10% off" 2…

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#163

Post by sillysaurus3 »

hasenj wrote: post #94
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many applications I've used that come as an exe are hardly that easy to install and configure. Inevitably, something breaks because of my machine's particular configuration. On the development side, building to that magical executable is an even bigger nightmare. Most packages in python or nodejs? Install and run through package managers just fine.

The more you depend on things to be right in the target environment, the more chances you have of breaking things. Having a statically linked binary will not always magically solve this, but it's a great step in that direction. The other step is not relying on any external servers or services, e.g. postgresql, redis, etc. The rest just boils down to programmer discipline. Never introduce something that can potentiall…

I mean, have you tried running arc? You can fire up arc 3.1 via racket and it runs fine.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#165

Post by harshreality »

dictum wrote: post #143
Thriptic wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation 00:10-2:00 "Hey guys welcome to my channel. Make sure to like and subscribe and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Also make sure to check out [sponsor] and use coupon code [code] for 10% off" 2…

> 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation I'm happy when it's only useless. It's often useless and loud.

That's because it's an unconditioned stimulus (classical conditioning theory). If you repeatedly watch their videos, and like them, you'll start to associate their intro animation with the content you like, and you'll like the intro animation. Later, you'll even come up with post-rationalizations for why it's not quite so loud or useless.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#166

Post by briandear »

duxup wrote: post #78
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…

I read some sports related sites. Many have auto play video that seems to pop up just a bit after you've already started reading. The video almost always is unrelated (different team, different story) to what I'm already well into reading. This is annoying 100% of the time. It's never useful to me. Even worse. Some stories will be just a few words and a video. So I go to a site, read, play video.... and that same sit…

Safari disables autoplay by default.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#167

Post by tzahola »

wvenable wrote: post #48
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…

Microsoft is the worst for providing content in video only form (Channel 9). There have been tons of potentially interesting content posted to HN from Microsoft but I'm not going to sit through an hour long video at work. And they almost never provide any alternative text content (an article) for what's in the video.

Same with Apple. There are some weird behaviors that don’t get mentioned in the docs, yet if you stumble upon the _right_ WWDC video from 2014, it’ll explain everything.

But at least the content is covered by search engines via asciiwwdc.com

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#168

Post by abritinthebay »

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…

Speaking as someone who works for a site who produces a lot of video content and is trending more that way I can give you a simple reason why.

People consume it more.

They stay on the site longer, they tend to watch more videos than read articles, and they share videos more.

Now obviously the videos still need to be good content but the reason you’re seeing more video content is not because of some nefarious scheme: it’s because content producers see better user engagement with it.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#170

Post by insulanus »

Thriptic wrote: post #134
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…

> But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation 00:10-2:00 "Hey guys welcome to my channel. Make sure to like and subscribe and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Also make sure to check out [sponsor] and use coupon code [code] for 10% off" 2…

You forgot the trailer asking you to subscribe, with some clickable areas, and optional "bonus content at the end" :)

Makes it harder to estimate where the information in the video is.

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