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> I get people sending me things that I might like as a screenshot. Great, nice jacket, if only I could click that "buy" button. I wonder why sharing of links i

> I get people sending me things that I might like as a screenshot. Great, nice jacket, if only I could click that "buy" button. I wonder why sharing of links is so unpopular, especially outside of the tech-sphere. Is it that "link previews" are generally worse than a screenshot of the page? For the sender, especially on mobile, it takes less time to take and share a screenshot, then it takes to get the URL, copy it and paste it into a message. For the receiver, it takes less time to receive and view a screenshot then it takes to recieve and open a link. Web page rendering times suck, so the people have found a solution to work around that. I much prefer to receive a screenshot of what someone wants me to see, than a link. I can view picture messages much more quickly than I can view links, and I often wont click a link because I don't want to sit there waiting for a page to finish rendering. It's either slow because it's full of adverts, or it's slow because it's stalling waiting for an advert/tracker to load that's blocked by the pihole.

Y_Y 5y ago
For years I've been wishing for a kind of screenshot that included more than just pixel values. Like if it made a little pdf of the region you chose that rendered without fuss or external resources. There's no technical reason we couldn't have the convenience of screenshots, but also copyable text, clickable links etc.
pimlottc 5y ago
Links sharing is also less predictable. What will the shared message look like? Will it contain useful context like the page title or will it be a giant unreadable URL? Will there be a link preview? Depends on the messaging platform (SMS and Signal no, iMessage and Slack yes). Will it even take the user to the same page? Will there be a paywall or a redirect to an infinite scroll? A screenshot is truly WYSIWYG and is the most reliable way to know that they will see the exact same thing that you see.

Y_Y 5y ago

For years I've been wishing for a kind of screenshot that included more than just pixel values. Like if it made a little pdf of the region you chose that rendered without fuss or external resources. There's no technical reason we couldn't have the convenience of screenshots, but also copyable text, clickable links etc.

pimlottc 5y ago

Links sharing is also less predictable. What will the shared message look like? Will it contain useful context like the page title or will it be a giant unreadable URL? Will there be a link preview? Depends on the messaging platform (SMS and Signal no, iMessage and Slack yes). Will it even take the user to the same page? Will there be a paywall or a redirect to an infinite scroll? A screenshot is truly WYSIWYG and is the most reliable way to know that they will see the exact same thing that you see.