The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling • Hacker News Board

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#461

Post by chickensong » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:14 AM UTC

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #238

chickensong wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not everyone is like us There will never be anything close to uniformity, so we must decide if we cripple freedom to protect the weak while increasing bureaucracy and authoritarianism, or allow natural selection to take its course while improving treatment of symptoms. I'm empathetic to the struggle of addiction, which is a real and terrible thing, but I don't think we should create vague nanny laws as a soluti…

> we must decide if we cripple freedom to protect the weak Well, we do want to protect the weak (that's a function of society, after all), and I'm totally okay with removing infinite scrolling from social media apps (or "crippling freedom" as you put it). I don't see any significant benefit it provides to individuals or society. Indeed, it has a negative impact on both. So it sounds like a win/win.

It's not that infinite scrolling is good, I'm just not a fan of the legal solution because it sets precedent and is yet another law. I'm not an anarchist, I think some laws are needed, but I want society to be more engaged and responsible for our collective future, not helpless and dependent on laws and government to save us from ourselves.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#462

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

jason_oster wrote: post #425

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're contrasting authorship with distribution. The advertising equivalent to paying a technical writer is paying an ad agency to create the ad. The customer isn't a party to that transaction either. But now how are you distributing either of them?

I am not making such an error. Paying a technical writer for labor is not the same as paying a publisher for conversions. The scenario you posed was "hire someone to write the documentation and then someone else to distribute it." Those are two parties, each of which is paid independently for services rendered. The customer is not selling their attention, here. The customer is (presumably) purchasing a product and is…

The proposal was to "outlaw compensation for advertising". That would presumably include paying people to create ads and not just to publish them, hence the first example. What you're arguing is that the first example is different from the second one, but they were intended to be, because they map to two different parts of the process.

> The customer is (presumably) purchasing a product and is reading the documentation to understand how to operate it.

Product documentation is also available to prospective customers so they can review it to decide whether they want to purchase the product.

And then the question is, how do they get it? There are many ways to distribute. They could pay to print it out on paper and put it in the lobby in their corporate offices, but then customers would have to come to their corporate headquarters to get it, which most won't do, so obviously some methods of distribution have a higher likelihood of being seen. Then companies will prefer the ones that allow them to be seen more.

But they're paying someone for any of them, so "is paying for it" isn't a useful way to distinguish them.

And then we're back to, suppose you pay Facebook to host your documents on your company's Facebook page. Furthermore suppose that they, like most hosting companies, charge you more money if you get more traffic. Meanwhile their "hosting customers" on the "free tier" (i.e. ordinary Facebook users) have a very small quota which is really only enough for their posts to be seen by their own friends. So paying them for distribution -- like paying for any other form of distribution -- causes your documents to have better visibility. Now you can show up in the feed of more people before you run out of quota, just like paying more for hosting means more people could visit your website before you exceed your transfer allowance.

How do you tell if someone is paying for computing resources or eyeballs when the same company provides both? Notice that "don't let them do both" is a bit of a problem if you also don't let them sell advertising, because if they can't sell ads or charge for using the service then what are they doing for revenue?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#463

Post by roenxi » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:22 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

> My initial reaction was that this was a terrible precedent, but after thinking on it more I asked myself, "well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?". Everything I thought of would have some way or workaround that could be found...

This doesn't solve the problem though - the enforcers still have to come up with a standard that they will enforce. A line has to be drawn, letting people move the line around based on how they feel today doesn't help. Making the standard uncertain just creates opportunities for corruption and unfairness. I haven't read the actual EU stance on the matter but what you are describing is a reliable way to end up in a soup of bad policy. There needs to be specific rulings on what people can and can't do.

If you can't identify the problem, then you aren't in a position to solve it. Applies to most things. Regulation by vibe-checks is a great way to kill off growth and change - which the EU might think is clever, but the experience over the last few centuries has been that growth and change generally make things better.

And what they actually seem to be doing here is demanding that sites spy on their users and understand their browsing habits which does seem like a terrible approach. I don't see how their demands in that statement align with the idea of the EU promoting digital privacy.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#464

Post by yxhuvud » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:23 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #335

coldtea wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we come to such a low cultural point that ads are seen as some kind of basic human right? Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.

Freedom of speech is a basic human right. Ads are speech.

No. Ads are paying money to get a platform for that speech. Having a platform is in no way a basic right.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#465

Post by nozzlegear » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:27 AM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #460

bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

How would something like Github Sponsors work? Lots of projects use a "sponsor us for $LARGE_SUM and we'll mention you in our readme and release notes" model.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#466

Post by cyberrock » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:30 AM UTC

ktm5j wrote: post #29

linuxdude314 wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Maybe you're not the type of person who's struggled with addiction, but it can do awful things to you. Yes, including being addicted to scrolling social media. It screws with your head to the point where you don't know how to live in the moment anymore. IMO it's a feature that's not valuable enough to justify the fact that it contributes to poor quality of life for people who can't put it down.

What will stop the addicts from just installing a modified build? Will distributors of modified builds be subject to jail sentences like drug dealers? What about authors of auto-paginate scripts like Reddit Enhancement Suite, or the various HN client apps?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#467

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #452

phire wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can get most of the benefit by just banning targeted advertising. Require that every user must be shown the exact same ads (probabilistically). Don't allow any kind of interest or demographic based targeting for paid content. Advertisers would still be able to place Ads on pages they know there target audience goes, but wouldn't be able to make those same Ads follow that target audience around the interne…

Yes, a user in GA should be shown an ad for a car dealership in Hawaii…

Geofenced ads are not the same as targeted ads.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#468

Post by Barbing » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #460

bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

What would YouTube look like?

(Genuinely happy to read “like the good old days” as an answer!)

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#469

Post by bruce511 » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:36 AM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #460

bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

>> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

That's a definition, sure. I feel like it leaves loopholes (under this definition spam isn't advertising, and I guess affiliation programs are?)

If I pay someone to print flyers is that advertising? If I pay squarespace for my site, is that advertising?

What if I need a Google maps subscription to place pins? Is placing a pin then advertising? Even if the subscription gives me other abilities?

Under your definition I guess YouTube creators can't be sponsored. And all existing videos with sponsorship need yo be removed? And I guess no online watching of sports (lots of people paid to wear a logo there...)

Presumably no product placement in Netflix shows (not sure what to do with old content?)

Of course I'm not paid to advertise MiraclePill. My channel exists purely thanks to patreon. No, I don't know that my "executive level" patreons are all MiraclePill employees...

No, I don't pay Google for ads, the ads are free when I purchase GoogleCoin which I buy because I expect GoogleCoin to go up in value...

>> Advertising is pretty well defined.

Alas, I fear it isn't...

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#470

Post by jason_oster » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 5:36 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #462

jason_oster wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not making such an error. Paying a technical writer for labor is not the same as paying a publisher for conversions. The scenario you posed was "hire someone to write the documentation and then someone else to distribute it." Those are two parties, each of which is paid independently for services rendered. The customer is not selling their attention, here. The customer is (presumably) purchasing a product and is…

The proposal was to "outlaw compensation for advertising". That would presumably include paying people to create ads and not just to publish them, hence the first example. What you're arguing is that the first example is different from the second one, but they were intended to be, because they map to two different parts of the process. > The customer is (presumably) purchasing a product and is reading the documentati…

Indeed, advertisers would layoff or displace their marketing teams, as the role would have no value to the company if advertising was outlawed (meanwhile, technical writers would be just fine). I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the framing you put forth that equates advertising with technical writing.

> Product documentation is also available to prospective customers so they can review it to decide whether they want to purchase the product.

I agree with this statement, but it is irrelevant. The primary purpose of documentation is what I said: for understanding how to operate the product. The only purpose of advertising is to make a sale. Advertising has no secondary purpose. These are not the same thing.

The test is quite simple: Is the sole purpose of the payment to make a sale? If so, it is advertising.

We don't really need to discuss documents any longer. Documentation is not an advertisement.