51–60 of 146 posts
While I usually find the businesses funded by Y Combinator awesome I think Scribd is a bad apple. Not only is the user experience terrible it also has the smell of a bad neighborhood with all the pirated content it offers. Today I incidentally read the current (March 2014) "Gutenberg 3.5 - Ebook Piracy Report"[1]. It seems to be from an anti-piracy lobbying group, so its obviously biased, but it mentions Scribd even…
What is a good alternative to Scribd? One that allows viewers to download the source file without too much hassle and displays the text properly? Google Drive?
What is a good alternative to Scribd? One that allows viewers to download the source file without too much hassle and displays the text properly? Google Drive?
Why not just use a sane PDF reader? Firefox has a reasonable one built-in. The problem with Scribd is that it tries to reduce your cognitive load by one click. "Open or save?" But it replaces that horrible, horrible soul-crushing "Open or save?" dilemma with its own inferior implementation.
What is a good alternative to Scribd? One that allows viewers to download the source file without too much hassle and displays the text properly? Google Drive?
Having a document hosted on your own website together with a javascript viewer reduces the risk for users both in terms of privacy and security, as Acrobat Reader is a seriously problematic piece of code and all the remote code is a serious violation of trust between the user and the owner of the site.
What is a good alternative to Scribd? One that allows viewers to download the source file without too much hassle and displays the text properly? Google Drive?
I really don't think there is a good answer for this that a lot of people use right now. It's definitely a project or startup waiting to happen.
I think my continued use of these sites rigged with all dark patterns are just a nod of acceptance. Deleted Quora app from phone long ago and logged out. It's probably time I delete my account. Update: Oh well. There's no delete feature implemented. You have to email Quora support. https://www.quora.com/Quora-product/How-do-I-delete-my-Quora...
I agree in the case of Scribd. Quora is not as clear-cut. While I dislike their 'login-wall', it doesn't feel like a company focused around short-term profits. I think their aim is noble, only that they are struggling somewhat to find ways to increase engagement and scope. Although subjective, I feel they are still on the right half of a good-insidious scale (Scribd less so).
There's nothing "noble" about spamming search engines with full text results then putting up a login-wall for the same content you arrived on the page for. Tricking random users looking for an answer that's supposedly there into registering so they can see the 1 answer is not increasing engagement, just signup counts.
It's funny, I actually used a similar trick (text-shadow + transparent font) for an optometrist's website a long time ago. It was just a neat visual effect though, no DRM garbage.