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You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

mastodon.technology

221–230 of 318 posts

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#222

I feel like these are “somebody got a promotion” patterns. Basically, somebody was able to “prove” to Higher-Up Managers that $X number of these videos were “watched” or “engaged with” (or whatever today’s BS lingo is), and therefore the business “benefited” in some way by “reaching” more people. Profit? In reality, at least in my case, what happens is: (1) I say “WTF!?!?”, (2) I make a mental note to never ever visi…

The goal of these sites is normally to be as profitable as possible. If they achieve that goal at the cost of pissing off "a bunch of geeks", I don't think they'll care.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think tech workers are making barely livable incomes.

Many of our parents had better lives overall despite less education, fewer hours worked, shorter commuting distance, etc. Yes, tech is better than most other jobs, but most tech jobs just give you the middle class life many people had 20-30 years ago (aside from the tech gadgets that didn’t exist 20-30 years ago that even the poor have now). In terms of large expenses and free time rather than gadgets, we’re no bette…

Stop buying gadgets, save way more money, get your free time.

Or did you expect to be able to buy 4 cars, 3 homes and 2 yachts as a middle class worker compared to your parents?

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#224

Not just news sites, either. A lot of fandom wikis run on the same platform, fandom.com. That site is a pain in the absolute fucking ass to use on any mobile device, specifically because of the autoplaying video that takes up half the screen on every page load . Weirdly, desktop is fine; no autoplaying videos or any such nonsense. It's only on mobile that Fandom has seemingly made a deliberate effort to make the user…

If you're using Firefox on Android then under settings > site permissions. Set block auto play to video and audio. For some unknown reason video is set to play by default. This seems to work at blocking the fandom crap for me. I also have ublock origin installed.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#226

Something about the post itself: while I'm firmly in the "it's annoying" camp, as is the author, the poll is a textbook example of how to make a heavily biased poll. Maybe there is a person or two who actually like it, but the dripping sarcasm of the poll's response is saying "whoever you are, you're cretins", and is not quite inviting for a discussion. I'd love to hear from someone who actually liked this pattern (a…

The poll is pretty obviously flippant. All the same , for such a widely-used dark pattern, the visceral hostile response is absolutely overwhelming. Think of all the weasly, greasy, contemptuous justifications that have been offerred for this practice. Clearly, someone's lying, and not at all convincingly.

I've heard plenty from content managers, website owners, management, that is, the side of barricade making this shit.

I suspect the overwhelming response from those who sorta tolerate is going to be: well, I want my dose of news, and everyone is doing that anyway, so I suppose that's how things are done today? But maybe there is someone who actually enjoys this. I'd like to hear from them.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#227
post #195

Not just news sites, either. A lot of fandom wikis run on the same platform, fandom.com. That site is a pain in the absolute fucking ass to use on any mobile device, specifically because of the autoplaying video that takes up half the screen on every page load . Weirdly, desktop is fine; no autoplaying videos or any such nonsense. It's only on mobile that Fandom has seemingly made a deliberate effort to make the user…

[deleted]

Wikia was never actually good, but they were never this bad, as when they sold out to some capital and start squeezing every penny from every pixel on the screen.

Right now, fandom.com is basically unusable. Unfortunately, as some info that is there is nowhere else.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm to the point I'd like to see them go 501c3 nonprofit. Admit defeat. Get used to just making a barely livable income, like the rest of us. Stop begging. Stop the obnoxious ads. Stop the shady subscription schemes. Enough with the .99 cent for six week promos. We obviously don't value you enough to give your access to our debit cards. Newspapers you lost the war. The sooner you realize it the better. Follow the PBS…

Right. The issue is twofold - in the internet era, the marginal utility of any additional news source is near zero. Sure, you might cross-check an article once in a blue moon, but most people consume news through a link that was sent to them by someone inside their bubble. And once they read the headline, there's 0 reason to click to another link with the same story ever again. So the links might as well be hosted in…

The barrier to entry into modern "journalism" evaporated with the internet. All Matt Drudge did was post links to other people's stories.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#229
post #219

Channel News Asia has developed a habit of putting 2 (two) auto-playing videos on some articles and having them both play simultaneously at full volume.

Wow. They even don't want to pretend that videos are for viewing.

Re: You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting

#230

Off topic, but I've never seen mastodon linked like this before on HN. Interesting this this might've normally been a link to a tweet.

It could have been a poll right here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

Would be interesting to know how it compares in user base and exposure. The fediverse poll lasted 1 day and gained 268 votes and with only 31 boosts (i.e. "retweets" in fediverse terminology). How many people saw the poll is hard to tell and depends too on the social graph from author and boosters, as well as the network of federated instances involved.

When posting a poll on HN, it of course has to reach the minimum number of upvotes to reach front page (which I believe for Polls and Ask HN is a bit higher than regular submissions).

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