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The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

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Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#291

Post by ozgrakkurt »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #4

Curious as to where the line between “addictive feature” and "good UX" is. Is deliberate pagination actual impedance to use or merely an annoyance that's been weeded out with modern UX design? When does a feature that simply makes your product easier to use cross into a territory that it's illegal? What about media previews, in a platform like reddit if you can preview or expand media directly from the main list is t…

This is a question that needs to be answered empirically. It should be forced to a point where it is not obviously addictive and then stay there imo

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#292

Post by ethin »

iamnothere wrote: post #245
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who agrees with you, it's much better to just make your point than to lay it out in hints like this. It's condescending and annoying. No offense intended, just a note.

Fair enough, I just get bored of being the lone voice refuting these obvious talking points. To be honest I suspect much of the support for this bill here is inorganic, and I do feel extreme contempt for the people pushing it. In the end I’m not really trying to convince these posters—they have obviously made up their mind—but rather to entertain and educate the nonaligned audience.

Honestly this is the big reason I have stopped participating in threads like this. Infinite scroll is not itself addictive. Hell, there are studies that suggest that us calling it "addictive" could itself create the very problem we're trying to "solve". There are also studies that completely refute the "social media is harmful" narrative too, and I'm talking on the order of millions of participants across more than 50 countries. Hell, even the kids don't agree with the narrative. I bring this up because all of this is so interconnected. I'll just leave this here for those curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzbz--aPQLE

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#293

Post by xienze »

Y-bar wrote: post #240
tqi wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, compliance is compliance. For another, "You only need them if you're using them for something like tracking." yeah, sites want to track user behavior and the eu said if you want to do that you gotta have a banner. How is that "malicious"? Seems like the eu got exactly what they wanted?

> and the eu said if you want to do that you gotta have a banner. No they did absolutely not say that! They said I need informed consent before I collect your personal identifiable information. Nothing prevents me from instead of using a banner, for example having a small widget in the footer or elsewhere on my site if I were to want to collect it (I have no analytics or cookies on my site at all).

> for example having a small widget in the footer or elsewhere on my site

And next thing you know, there'd be people complaining about "dark patterns" where the small widget is designed to be very easy to overlook and (more importantly) someone may inadvertently use the site briefly before noticing that they can turn off tracking. Whoops, you just got tracked.

A modal makes it obvious what's happening on the site and gives you a chance to opt-out before proceeding. There really is no better way to do it that's going keep everyone happy. People just don't want to admit that the only way to properly implement this feature is to annoy people.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#294

Post by dudefeliciano »

iamnothere wrote: post #254
etdznots wrote: post #247

This seems like an arms race that will be very hard for the state to win, meta is prepared to spend billions throwing engineers phds and compute at making the most addicting platform possible within the bounds set by the law, while this kind of law would make it hard for small entrants into the market, I’m not against trying to do things that are reasonable to prevent addictive behavior, but I hope these rules are ga…

This is exactly what will happen, Meta will just add a “next page” thing after 100 items that does a cool animation when you click it and the feed will continue as usual. Meanwhile we’ll start stacking up similar bills everywhere else and small operators will close down when they start getting worried about keeping up with 50 states worth of different regulations. Goal achieved: media centralized.

I'm trying to think of a small operator that absolutely needs inifinite scroll on their site for their product to "work" and nothing comes to mind.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#295

Post by ethin »

AlexandrB wrote: post #55
ls612 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this is states trying to figure out a way around the first amendment to regulate social media that the courts will wink and accept. That is why you see so many convoluted laws being drawn up by state legislatures about this.

What should be changed is the exemption algorithmically curated feeds still get under section 230. This has always seemed like a huge loophole. Once social media feeds are picking and choosing what to show users based on opaque criteria they are no longer neutral carriers of information but more like newspaper editors. They should be liable for what the users see.

> What should be changed is the exemption algorithmically curated feeds still get under section 230.

Uh... Have you actually ever read section 230? There is no "exemption" that algorithms get. Like literally none. The section is probably one of the simplest forms of legalese in the entire US code. Please read it before making claims about it.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#296

Post by xigoi »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #71
falcor84 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the underlying table changed since. I'm not very familiar with these myself, but it seams to me that the best solution is to keep a session cursor for the user, and these are a lot simpler when you only ever move it forward.

It's slightly different but I don't see why there should be a notable difference in difficulty. You need to somehow represent what you saw so far and act based on that.

With infinite scroll, “what you saw so far” is in the client. With pagination, it exists only in the user’s mind.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#297

Post by ethin »

halestock wrote: post #206
an0malous wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should all buttons require a confirmation dialog to prevent people from making decisions too hastily? Should we ensure all interactions have at least 100ms of latency so users don’t get mesmerized by a smooth experience? Maybe we should set a max color saturation so nothing looks too enticing. We also don’t really need box shadows or gradients, they’re clearly meant to mesmerize users into making bad decisions. What…

Is your argument that unless we can make a law that is perfect and covers every conceivable use case of coercive design, then we shouldn't bother to make a law that covers any of them?

I'm pretty sure the point being made is that things like this are very difficult to actually encode into law in such a way that it doesn't cause significant damage downstream. Like, take the age verification/estimation laws that are going around. We see the big companies actively encouraging it because the laws will (ironically) benefit big tech rather than harming them in any substantial manner: companies like Meta have the money and resources to implement them. But everyone who isn't a super big powerful company will be harmed because they will be unable to comply (or will find it incredibly costly to do so).

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#298

Post by invalidusernam3 »

Why only focus on youngsters? Many of the older generations that I see online seem to have been impacted massively by social media in a negative way. Yes in theory adults should have freedom to choose, but when your app is the digital version of crack cocaine I think there should be some rules.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#299

Post by tgv »

an0malous wrote: post #155
scoofy wrote: post #81

We can all agree that the internet was great and now it is less great, but the second someone articulates a very, very simple rule, the "well ackchyually" crew comes out of the woodwork. Infinite scroll is very obviously unnecessary. It is very obviously intended to keep people on an app longer than they would otherwise use it. You can lazy load into a finite scroll. Just make people click something every once in a w…

Should all buttons require a confirmation dialog to prevent people from making decisions too hastily? Should we ensure all interactions have at least 100ms of latency so users don’t get mesmerized by a smooth experience? Maybe we should set a max color saturation so nothing looks too enticing. We also don’t really need box shadows or gradients, they’re clearly meant to mesmerize users into making bad decisions. What…

"Should all inhaleable substances be controlled? But then people won't be able to breathe. So smoking must be permitted unconditionally!"

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#300

Post by KaiserPro »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #4

Curious as to where the line between “addictive feature” and "good UX" is. Is deliberate pagination actual impedance to use or merely an annoyance that's been weeded out with modern UX design? When does a feature that simply makes your product easier to use cross into a territory that it's illegal? What about media previews, in a platform like reddit if you can preview or expand media directly from the main list is t…

Your edit is actually the nub of the matter.

Its all very well saying "we will ban x" but unless you can define "x" reliably in a way that stands up to court arguing, you're not banning it, you're putting a lawyer tax on it.

The issue is, the vauger the terms, or harder it is to prove, the more money can warp the outcome.

There will always been cornercases to all laws, so you need to choose what you are going to hit and why.

Dark UX patterns can be hard to prove, you need to show that a normal person is not reasonably able to understand. That changes with time. (ie in the 90s asking someone to login and press a link would have been onerous, when a phone service/postal/fax was the done thing.)

So you either build in a proof, which can be gamed, or you target a specific action or thing, which will need updating.

the Law is hard, and, increasingly made by people who are not experts.

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