The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by nijave » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:29 AM UTC

chillfox wrote: post #76

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…

Infinite scroll is bad UX design and always has been. It makes it impossible to click on any links in the footer of the page or even really reading what's in the footer. I remember when it was initially introduced, everyone I spoke to about it hated it.

position: fixed has been around a long time

A lot of implementations also break the back button and "page" or scroll position links (you can link to a singular item but not a spot in the list)

They usually also break psuedo binary search and force linear/sequential search (you can't skip a head to page 10 when you're trying to zero in on a date unless they've added an explicit date filter and you remember the exact date versus the relative position)

Also breaks parallel loading--can't queue up the next few pages of gigantic media in new tabs while finishing the current page

They also tend to break ctrl-f and if they don't they tend to get progressively slower as more crap stays loaded in memory

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

#302

Post by meindnoch » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:35 AM UTC

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 we ensure all interactions have at least 100ms of latency

Web developers are already hard at work on this.

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

#303

Post by tmtvl » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:36 AM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #250

nkrisc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to keep your place if the order changes anyway? What is your place if the order has changed? If the order changes, all bets are off regardless of pagination or infinite scroll.

When asked to load more items, simply take the entire list (which may have changed) and remove the items already shown on the screen.

How does that differ from 'when asked to load more items, simply take the entire list (which may have changed) and remove the items already shown on previous pages'?

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

#304

Post by xigoi » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:46 AM UTC

tmtvl wrote: post #303

xigoi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When asked to load more items, simply take the entire list (which may have changed) and remove the items already shown on the screen.

How does that differ from 'when asked to load more items, simply take the entire list (which may have changed) and remove the items already shown on previous pages'?

The fact that, in general, you don’t know what was on the previous pages, if anything. The user may just randomly decide to open page 3 without having visited the previous two pages. Or they clicked “next” after having page 2 open on their computer for several days and meanwhile they used your website on a different device.

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

#305

Post by crimsdings » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

tqi wrote: post #219

Insimwytim wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As many have said before: it's basically malicious compliance. They're supposed to be super annoying ... Instead of complying, they choose this obnoxious practice so they could continue ... monitoring every action a visitor does. You don't need a cookie banner to be allowed to create Cookies. You only need them if you're using them for something like tracking. [1] Regulators didn't enforce cookie banners. Cookie bann…

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?

I want to decline a websites ability to track my behavior and/or decline that they pass the data to another company. Most websites allow me to decline it. I prefer to have to opt in which is a minor inconvenience - then not having the option at all. Also the banners we got are deliberately bad and cumbersome so people just click on allow.

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

#306

Post by plopilop » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:55 AM UTC

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…

Don't quote me on this but I once heard that in the EU you always need to confirm purchases, ie. you cannot have the Amazon 1-click system.

But in general, yes, having a confirmation dialog on important buttons is good UX; similarly as to setting minimum/maximum saturation will increase accessibility by visually impaired people, epileptic people etc.

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

#307

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #239

coldbrewed wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it fascinating that the people making the most extensive use of infinite feeds and A/B testing for maximum user engagement are also the massive platforms with dominating network effects and captive audiences? It's like _specifically regulating large social media conglomerates with outsized impact, capacity for harm, and demonstrated propensity to maximize user addiction might provide an ideal balance of societa…

Sophistry. The question is not whether or not regulation is authoritarian, it’s whether or not it’s constitutional. As in, whether or not the government is even allowed to make such a law. A law doesn’t just get a constitutional bypass because it’s addressing known harms or “anti-social” behavior or whatever. This is not the UK. Illuminated signs exist in the real, physical world. They can beam bright light into your…

It was not sophistry, it was completely valid.

> A law doesn’t just get a constitutional bypass because it’s addressing known harms or “anti-social” behavior or whatever. This is not the UK.

First, the harm arguments are regularly made in front of the supreme court. And sometimes, when it suits them, justices make their own harm or sociality arguments. No, USA is worst. It gets to be constitutional if it advances conservative right wing agenda and unconstitutional otherwise.

> The First Amendment is quite possibly the most uniquely American thing about our Constitution, and its most defining feature.

You dont defend it by redefining its meaning to unrecognizable to encompass things non-speech of corporations. All the while making it so that in practice, poorer people have no defense anyway.

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

#308

Post by Y-bar » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:59 AM UTC

xienze wrote: post #293

Y-bar wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I can’t emphasise enough how much you are missing the point of the law! The law requires me to NOT track you unless I get specific, informed, consent.

The fundamental and default part of the law is to NOT track. Tracking by default (opt-out) is illegal. A modal is just a way to annoy you until you consent against your will.

https://gdpr.eu/article-6-how-to-process-personal-data-legal...

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

#309

Post by frou_dh » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

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…

Talking of heavy-handed confirmation dialogs, there's a good example of this in Apple's Preview.app (PDF viewer). They made an unconfigurable change a few years ago, such that every single time you click any web link in a PDF, you have to confirm with a dialog that you want to open the link. You used to be able to just click links!

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

#310

Post by Tade0 » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

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 seeks to regulate the opposite basically "your platform is, too easy, too good at serving your content"

No, it's seeking to ban presenting content at a faster rate than a person can meaningfully digest.

There's a limit to that rate over which the platform doesn't become "too good", it just becomes worse, as it's showing too much too fast and breaking attention.