151–160 of 318 posts
If they can trigger a "video fired" message in the analytics, that's one more "Person viewed our video" they can show to a potential advertiser. That's all it's about, not the end user's experience.
Classic example of that "if a metric becomes the goal, that metric is no longer useful" quote. At least, I think that's a real quote.
How about an opt in botnet extension for your browser that focuses it's energy on sites with this sort of dark pattern behaviour. i.e. You install the extension, when you come across a site like this you vote it for getting punishment, once the site gets enough vote the botnet occasionally focusses it's energy on the site in question when the participants browser is otherwise sitting idle. The punishment could potent…
Why stop there? Maybe websites you don’t like should have a crowdsourced assassin come to kill the relevant developers.
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…
I'd say the worst part is that Firefox has a feature for blocking auto playing video. But it never works.
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I agree completely. When there's a looping video below the fold, I'd rather start it with a click, instead of having to watch it up to twice just to see the clip from beginning to end.
Then click the button to replay the clip from the beginning if that really is your problem. But you won't. Because the clips are 5 to 20 seconds long. So its faster to just wait for the loop than even to move your hand to the mouse.
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That's E-ZPass, FasTrak, etc. Also those toll bridges where they take a photo of your license plate and send you a bill that includes a $6 "convenience fee"
Ohhhh, it's a lot more than that. You're being tracked by your car and phone bluetooth MAC addresses. That's how the "X minutes to exit Y" signboards work. They time how long it takes to see a particular MAC address appear at the next receiver.
How about an opt in botnet extension for your browser that focuses it's energy on sites with this sort of dark pattern behaviour. i.e. You install the extension, when you come across a site like this you vote it for getting punishment, once the site gets enough vote the botnet occasionally focusses it's energy on the site in question when the participants browser is otherwise sitting idle. The punishment could potent…
The replies to this are so funny :D "It's illegal! Immoral! Assassination! Theft! Murder! Felony! To the gallows!" Yeah, no. So it's legal, moral, and acceptable that software and websites are made, by you folk reading this here website no less, to consume orders of magnitude more resources than they need to, just so that web companies---you folk, remember---can make some stats go up and turn them into money. It's ok…
Your argument is like saying if a barbershop always has 2 hour wait times and has crappy music playing on an excessively loud radio, it's ok to retaliate against them.
If every barbershop is like this, that's sad and should be fixed, but it still doesn't make it ok to retaliate against them.
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…
It's maybe not the best, but it's also not evil. And by that standard "somebody had a good day". I won't blame them. That's what teams, managers, corporate cultures, capitalism, the system or whatever incentive for, and that's what they get.
Let's face it : the modern web is a nightmare without an adblocker and annoyance blocklists. And most web creators aren't even aware because they use these tools themselves. No wonder why normal people like walled gardens, the UI is more streamlined and (mostly) more respectful.
> No wonder why normal people like walled gardens, the UI is more streamlined and (mostly) more respectful. Oh wow that's actually a good point, never thought about it that way. You are spot on I think, besides some heavy attempts by services to get people to use their apps (especially pronounced on mobile). Note though that the web has always been annoying users, or at least many website have. I remember how in the…
I don't miss the days of Verizon attempting to hawk songs and ringtones on a janky, zero-upside store for $5 a pop.
Let's face it : the modern web is a nightmare without an adblocker and annoyance blocklists. And most web creators aren't even aware because they use these tools themselves. No wonder why normal people like walled gardens, the UI is more streamlined and (mostly) more respectful.
Have you seen someone use Facebook as of recent? Respectful?
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The replies to this are so funny :D "It's illegal! Immoral! Assassination! Theft! Murder! Felony! To the gallows!" Yeah, no. So it's legal, moral, and acceptable that software and websites are made, by you folk reading this here website no less, to consume orders of magnitude more resources than they need to, just so that web companies---you folk, remember---can make some stats go up and turn them into money. It's ok…
It is sad that most of the web is like this, but no, there's nothing illegal, immoral, or unacceptable about people offering to you (for free) shitty services which are a hassle (cost you resources) to use. You're free to not use them if you don't like them. Your argument is like saying if a barbershop always has 2 hour wait times and has crappy music playing on an excessively loud radio, it's ok to retaliate against…
So yeah if my barbershop is playing loud music I ask them to turn it down please, and if barber queues are too long, maybe it's time for barbers to be nationalised because the private sector is failing to keep up, no?