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> The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. ... These days, none of that occurs. This can be directly attributed to the

> The biggest takeaway is that HTML was originally designed to degrade gracefully. ... These days, none of that occurs. This can be directly attributed to the fact that the purpose of the average webpage is no longer to convey information, but to display ads. I frequently see people say that if a site doesn't allow people with an ad blocker to read their content, they immediately bounce off the site, and that site loses a visitor. What I don't think people get is that this is what those sites want. They don't care about pageviews or impressions. They care about ad views. Someone with an ad blocker uses their bandwidth, but doesn't increase revenue. To an extent, the more important conveying information is, the more likely the page is to gracefully degrade. Of course, even that is mitigated by the fact that most people throwing up a web page are either hosted by a commercial platform (Medium, et al), or at the very least using a popular framework that is designed with commercial usage in mind.

Zelphyr 7y ago
I hate to say it because I’m one of those people who bounce at a “turn off your ad blocker” notice but you’re absolutely right, and I had never considered before the fact that they don’t care that they’re losing my page view. They just want that ad impression. What a sad state we’re in right now.
gargravarr 7y ago
I hadn't considered this angle, but it does make a lot of sense. If a bouncer wasn't going to give a site ad revenue, the site doesn't want that bouncer in the first place. This is a horrible state to be in. I mean, I get that advertising is the only way to make regular money on the web, but dear god, we are in a sad situation where people who don't want to be blasted with advertising aren't made welcome.
amw-zero 7y ago
I don’t think the ad part is the biggest influencer in the lack of ability for a website to degrade into a less styled form. I think the bigger factor is that people are also designing applications that run in the browser, and those make less sense to let degrade since they rely on a rich UI with lots of styling and behavior.

Zelphyr 7y ago

I hate to say it because I’m one of those people who bounce at a “turn off your ad blocker” notice but you’re absolutely right, and I had never considered before the fact that they don’t care that they’re losing my page view. They just want that ad impression. What a sad state we’re in right now.

gargravarr 7y ago

I hadn't considered this angle, but it does make a lot of sense. If a bouncer wasn't going to give a site ad revenue, the site doesn't want that bouncer in the first place. This is a horrible state to be in. I mean, I get that advertising is the only way to make regular money on the web, but dear god, we are in a sad situation where people who don't want to be blasted with advertising aren't made welcome.

amw-zero 7y ago

I don’t think the ad part is the biggest influencer in the lack of ability for a website to degrade into a less styled form. I think the bigger factor is that people are also designing applications that run in the browser, and those make less sense to let degrade since they rely on a rich UI with lots of styling and behavior.