4 ms·

> Maybe it's unnecessary, maybe not, but that's subjective and most people would rather have images and decent UI. The rise and success of cruft-stripping-as-a

by jswrenn 10y ago

> Maybe it's unnecessary, maybe not, but that's subjective and most people would rather have images and decent UI. The rise and success of cruft-stripping-as-a-service offerings like Readability, Pocket, Instapaper, etc., seems to indicate that a not-insignificant segment of consumers think that a "decent UI" is _less_ UI.

emodendroket 10y ago
As far as I can tell the main appeal of most of those is "I'll read this later."
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Source on that? I don't know anyone who uses it that way, though it is one of their selling points
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    That's the only way I've ever used them and there are a bunch of send-to-Kindle services based on them so I feel like I can't be alone here. I'm not sure how you'd go about quantifying this though.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      For what it's worth, iOS Safari has a directly available "Reader View" button that bumps you to a cleaned up view immediately with a single tap. The built in "Add to Reading List" is buried behind the share sheet.
- cholantesh 10y ago
  It is, but many times, I end up using Pocket or Instagram because the text is presented in a way that is simply unreadable for me, and neither Firefox's Reading Mode nor Clearly (when I use Chrome) help.
  - dyladan 10y ago
    I think you mean Instapaper
manigandham 10y ago
Those are more for archiving and reading later rather than about the UI. Otherwise we've had RSS readers and "reader" mode for browsers for a long time but they dont have significant usage.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Those have several attractions. Stripping the cruft from pages is a large part of it. Simply having a consistent typography, font selection, size, and readable contrast is a huge benefit. Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem. (And asstasstic browser defaults is another problem: why an absolutely unstyled page cannot be perfectly readable and acceptable is a huge flaw. I blame the browser vendors and W3C for this.) A tool which manages a large written archive is another hugely useful aspect. Tabs and bookmarking both suck. Also: best I can tell, Readability seem to have died so far as any visible development or company activity goes. There's been none in years, though the service itself works for now. I'm in the process of moving 2000 articles to Pocket (Instapaper lacks necessary features IMO). It's worth noting that Pinboard.io itself addresses some of these needs.

by jswrenn 10y ago

emodendroket 10y ago

As far as I can tell the main appeal of most of those is "I'll read this later."

CaptSpify 10y ago
Source on that? I don't know anyone who uses it that way, though it is one of their selling points
- emodendroket 10y ago
  That's the only way I've ever used them and there are a bunch of send-to-Kindle services based on them so I feel like I can't be alone here. I'm not sure how you'd go about quantifying this though.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    For what it's worth, iOS Safari has a directly available "Reader View" button that bumps you to a cleaned up view immediately with a single tap. The built in "Add to Reading List" is buried behind the share sheet.
cholantesh 10y ago
It is, but many times, I end up using Pocket or Instagram because the text is presented in a way that is simply unreadable for me, and neither Firefox's Reading Mode nor Clearly (when I use Chrome) help.
- dyladan 10y ago
  I think you mean Instapaper

manigandham 10y ago

Those are more for archiving and reading later rather than about the UI. Otherwise we've had RSS readers and "reader" mode for browsers for a long time but they dont have significant usage.

dredmorbius 10y ago

Those have several attractions. Stripping the cruft from pages is a large part of it. Simply having a consistent typography, font selection, size, and readable contrast is a huge benefit. Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem. (And asstasstic browser defaults is another problem: why an absolutely unstyled page cannot be perfectly readable and acceptable is a huge flaw. I blame the browser vendors and W3C for this.) A tool which manages a large written archive is another hugely useful aspect. Tabs and bookmarking both suck. Also: best I can tell, Readability seem to have died so far as any visible development or company activity goes. There's been none in years, though the service itself works for now. I'm in the process of moving 2000 articles to Pocket (Instapaper lacks necessary features IMO). It's worth noting that Pinboard.io itself addresses some of these needs.