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This is completely off-topic but... The article in question gave an accidental glimpse of a better world or, well, better web. The cookie and data protection d
by yason 7y ago
This is completely off-topic but... The article in question gave an accidental glimpse of a better world or, well, better web.
The cookie and data protection dialog asks the usual question. The choices are to agree and continue, or "Decline and Visit Plain Text Site"! What? Someone still does plaintext sites? And to get the plaintext version you also get the privilege of not having to accept any of this:
"...use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media services, sponsorship, analytics and other third-party service providers."
This must be a hidden statement of some sort from the web administrators.
Basically they propose whether I want to get screwed in so many ways or, declining that, only get the content I actually want. Nobody genuinely interested in tracking me down and selling my data to the moon and back would do this.
This contrast presented is borderline between hilarious and very depressing, very much underlining what most sites actually offer you but I certainly wish all websites were exactly like this. Decline all shit and get the plaintext version - how much better could things get?!
- GordonS 7y agoI saw a similar cookie dialog for the first time the other day. Some very few people actually want plain text sites, but for most people, what this is saying is "accept our cookies, or we'll punish you by giving you a crappy view of our content". I recall reading that under the GDPR you're not allowed to refuse service if the user refuses non-essential cookies - this feels like a workaround to force users to accept. There are of course various other workarounds in place, such as displaying long, fake loading spinners if you click "refuse", or giving you hundreds of toggles to manually click. The way companies deal with cookies really is a disgrace.
- sneak 7y agoPlot twist: most users prefer pictures and video, and don't care about their privacy until years later when their historic data is used against them.
- nkrisc 7y agoI love NPR's plain text site. I wish more sites did it. Throw your user stylesheet on it (something like https://writ.cmcenroe.me/ https://writ.cmcenroe.me/) and you're set!
- capableweb 7y agoThe only negative with their implementation is that if you click on the plaintext link, it takes you to https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/, it doesn't take you to the article you tried to read. Otherwise, Thanks a lot NPR for doing plain text at all!