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That page shows the worst use of the internet in the world. 15.88 MB in size according to Firefox. And unintuitive gimmick navigation to boot. How does doing so

That page shows the worst use of the internet in the world. 15.88 MB in size according to Firefox. And unintuitive gimmick navigation to boot. How does doing something like that help convey the message?

scrollaway 9y ago
Jeez, two comments on the story, both of them talking about the page's design (which is honestly fine). Here's a text-only version: https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-worst-internet-in-america/#content https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//fiv... We moving on now?
- jsmthrowaway 9y ago
  Wait, fine? It's catastrophically unusable in landscape on iPad without Reader View. The limited-to-landscape side scrolling gimmick covers pretty much the entire top of the article, which flickers in and out at display refresh rate if I scroll back and forth to try to read the content underneath. I can't read anything until the graf that starts with "FiveThirtyEight analyzed" on the latest iOS. https://i.imgur.com/e0XeLw5.png https://i.imgur.com/e0XeLw5.png I'd say the commentary is fair, since it's a good explainer for how one can harm UX very quickly when changing the semantics of scrolling and a reminder of the importance of testing across all platforms and orientations. Yes, this happens a lot on HN. Often, a discussion about how to fix it comes about, and we all learn something. I would guess you know that, though.
- keithpeter 9y ago
  Sigh: I understand what you are saying, but then, the subject of the OA is communities that are excluded from some aspects of modern life by poor and expensive Internet access. One inevitably starts to think about why someone needs a connection capable of downloading at scores of megabits per second to access information and take part in (the human style) local networking. I then contrast the loading speed of a page with Javascript on with the loading speed when Javascript is disabled... (I get 350 kbits/sec down here). Back on the subject: am I right in thinking that a lower bandwidth connection - say 2Mb/s - would be cheaper to provide in some way than a full city scale pipe, or is it simply the cost of providing any kind of connection involving digging trenches just so high?
  - deleted 9y ago
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- khedoros1 9y ago
  > (which is honestly fine) I thought that it was counterintuitive, glitchy, and annoying. I thought that Chrome was having a problem, like it did on a site I visited yesterday
zkms 9y ago
This seems like an extraneous tetchy comment but I don't think it is. Extant slow internet connections would be a lot more usable if websites weren't full of video/audio adverts, trackers, and JS being used for stuff (displaying text/images or doing some awful and slow scrolling) that browsers do well natively. Try using the internet (beyond HN or gmail or pinboard) on a mediocre internet connection without any adblocker or noscript-equivalent. It gets nasty very fast. To be fair, this isn't a justification for not building out better last-mile links -- just like, the miserable state of residential internet connections in the US is made a lot worse by awful bloated websites. https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ and http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm are good reads on this.
- Tenshiri 9y ago
  I may be wrong, but wouldn't the full "suite" of privacy tools, like uBlock, Privacy Badger, etc actually speed up these connections based on this?
kristopolous 9y ago
Wait that was intentional? I honestly thought it was my graphics card glitching.
ericd 9y ago
For reference, that would take roughly 53 minutes to load on a 56kbps modem.

scrollaway 9y ago

Jeez, two comments on the story, both of them talking about the page's design (which is honestly fine). Here's a text-only version: https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-worst-internet-in-america/#content https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//fiv... We moving on now?

jsmthrowaway 9y ago
Wait, fine? It's catastrophically unusable in landscape on iPad without Reader View. The limited-to-landscape side scrolling gimmick covers pretty much the entire top of the article, which flickers in and out at display refresh rate if I scroll back and forth to try to read the content underneath. I can't read anything until the graf that starts with "FiveThirtyEight analyzed" on the latest iOS. https://i.imgur.com/e0XeLw5.png https://i.imgur.com/e0XeLw5.png I'd say the commentary is fair, since it's a good explainer for how one can harm UX very quickly when changing the semantics of scrolling and a reminder of the importance of testing across all platforms and orientations. Yes, this happens a lot on HN. Often, a discussion about how to fix it comes about, and we all learn something. I would guess you know that, though.
keithpeter 9y ago
Sigh: I understand what you are saying, but then, the subject of the OA is communities that are excluded from some aspects of modern life by poor and expensive Internet access. One inevitably starts to think about why someone needs a connection capable of downloading at scores of megabits per second to access information and take part in (the human style) local networking. I then contrast the loading speed of a page with Javascript on with the loading speed when Javascript is disabled... (I get 350 kbits/sec down here). Back on the subject: am I right in thinking that a lower bandwidth connection - say 2Mb/s - would be cheaper to provide in some way than a full city scale pipe, or is it simply the cost of providing any kind of connection involving digging trenches just so high?
- deleted 9y ago
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khedoros1 9y ago
> (which is honestly fine) I thought that it was counterintuitive, glitchy, and annoying. I thought that Chrome was having a problem, like it did on a site I visited yesterday

zkms 9y ago

This seems like an extraneous tetchy comment but I don't think it is. Extant slow internet connections would be a lot more usable if websites weren't full of video/audio adverts, trackers, and JS being used for stuff (displaying text/images or doing some awful and slow scrolling) that browsers do well natively. Try using the internet (beyond HN or gmail or pinboard) on a mediocre internet connection without any adblocker or noscript-equivalent. It gets nasty very fast. To be fair, this isn't a justification for not building out better last-mile links -- just like, the miserable state of residential internet connections in the US is made a lot worse by awful bloated websites. https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ and http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm are good reads on this.

Tenshiri 9y ago
I may be wrong, but wouldn't the full "suite" of privacy tools, like uBlock, Privacy Badger, etc actually speed up these connections based on this?

kristopolous 9y ago

Wait that was intentional? I honestly thought it was my graphics card glitching.

ericd 9y ago

For reference, that would take roughly 53 minutes to load on a 56kbps modem.