111–120 of 137 posts
It's even worse than that, first Google will bug you to use Chrome, then bug you to login, then after your search the browser will pop up "Google would like to use your current location". And then the first half-page of results are ads. And half of the actual results are AI slop and a helpful AI summary of the slop. And that's before you even get to the page.
Ran into this gem today: https://files.catbox.moe/bvrd6u.jpg > Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine — no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. > Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit.
Google is the modern-day Yellow Pages; kill some trees and slam that rainwater-soaked stack of ads on my porch. I won't say no to free, but how many hoops did we go through to end up back here?
I don't remember, when I saw an ad on web on any home device last time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ran into this gem today: https://files.catbox.moe/bvrd6u.jpg > Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine — no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. > Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit.
Ah, the joys of crafting an illegal monopoly, systematically abusing the society that built you up, routinely breaking laws and defying judges. Enables you to become exactly what you got successful for NOT being. Must be great. /s
Getting to the final page was a good reminder of the new "Hide Distracting Items" in the latest macOS Safari. The feature lets you select offending blocks which are deleted from the page. The feature remembers the items you deleted on re-visit, too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a whole lot more to this than just whether content creators or publishes should get paid, and whether there should be ad blockers (and whether they get paid). There are people who have been fed up by this because they remembered how the web was like in the late 90s, before social media pushes became the dominant experience. People have formulated ideas around the Small Web ( https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-…
I get that, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people whose job content is, and who may have had the same job in the 90s, e.g. newspaper journalists. So I'm asking those who don't want to pay for a subscription, but want to use an ad blocker: How does it work? As said, I opted for paying the creator directly, because I hate the ad ecosystem. Seems like a lot of people want to do neither, but still expe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ran into this gem today: https://files.catbox.moe/bvrd6u.jpg > Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine — no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. > Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit.
Ah, the joys of crafting an illegal monopoly, systematically abusing the society that built you up, routinely breaking laws and defying judges. Enables you to become exactly what you got successful for NOT being. Must be great. /s
Sadly the reality for 99% of blogs and news sites nowadays. Makes me wonder whether this is part of the reason why social media sites, YouTube, etc have taken over as a source of information for many people now. Those sites are nightmarish in their own right, but they seem to be less heavy on the annoyances than the average news site now.
I think we should take the time to recognize that this isn't bad design, it's a badly regulated market. This is exactly what antitrust exists for: to prevent a small number of firms dominating a market with thin margins, leading to a few decent experiences (namely Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok) and crushing economics for the rest. What can you do as a publisher of web content other than compete wit…