26 ms·

I wish I could post a screenshot of this site, because it proves beyond all measure why the commercial web sucks. Two modals for "sign up for our mailing list"

I wish I could post a screenshot of this site, because it proves beyond all measure why the commercial web sucks. Two modals for "sign up for our mailing list" and "accept all cookies". Fuck you very much. Why would I read your opinion whining about the web when you contributed to the downfall of the web yourself?

arandomhuman 4y ago
I was not familiar with the publisher posting this article, but briefly overlooked your comment before opening the link. At first glance, I was amused, genuinely thinking this article/website a interesting parody of making a website with all the dark patterns and implementation of sign-up-to-mailing-list/tracking/shopping/subscription/etc. and was excited thinking it was awesome someone was so aware of the problems with the internet today they encapsulated the issues into the website itself satirically. But upon clicking around around further the author was indeed completely unaware of the irony of its own article.
- hnbad 4y ago
  Hipocrisy is a valid criticism but not a counter-argument. I believe the meme format is "you want to improve society somewhat yet you participate in it".
  - arandomhuman 4y ago
    I don't see how my comment was proposing an argument to the content within the article. It was merely a criticism and would hope to it interpreted as such. Wouldn't be nice to see a higher level of quality and consistency in commentaries like this, especially when the title is as ambitious as something as 'fighting for the digital future'? I don't mean to sound rude, but your response sounds a bit presumptuous and complacent with hypocrisy.
- streamlining 4y ago
  What? The website has one pop up for me and it looks nice actually. Cookie consent notices are the fault of lacking browser standards, not individual web sites.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Try browsing by default with javascript off, and enabling it only for sites that don't work. It's actually not that annoying to do since many sites degrade gracefully and degrade the "features" I don't want anyway(like promo or cookie banners). I can read the whole article without any distraction, except for the bright red banner which remains at the top.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Bright red banner? Those are the things that really make me appreciate the pipette(?) tool in ublock. My joy of the internet somewhat improved with that, especially on return/ repeat visits to various sites.
fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
I’m not sure if this is genuine question or not (and forgive my presumption, if there is any, as I know not everyone is privileged with both a technical and legal education), but the reason these kinds of modals exist is because of (1) legal expectations, and (2) the organization’s function as a(n advocacy) publication and a likely desire to collapse two necessary but intrusive elements into a single interruption/intervention.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  You don’t need cookies or to force someone to decline to sign up for your newsletter to do those things.
  - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
    Again, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I would encourage you to (1) investigate the privacy laws behind cookie permissions and why consent forms are becoming ubiquitous, and (2) the UIUX logic governing prioritization of interactive elements. “Need” here is overdetermined. From a primordial perspective I suppose you could argue the design “force[s]” users to take certain actions, but it’s not like there isn’t a substantive and more intellectually honest take, which is that the modals are annoying but unextraordinary and in-line with standard legal expectations and design practices.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > but I would encourage you to (1) investigate the privacy laws behind cookie permissions and why consent forms are becoming ubiquitous If you're referring to GDPR and ePrivacy, then there's literally no reason to show that consent form for cookies that are strictly required for the functioning of your site. > and in-line with standard legal expectations and design practices. False on the legal expectation. Sadly true on the design practices.
      - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
        > If you're referring to GDPR and ePrivacy, then there's literally no reason to show that consent form for cookies that are strictly required for the functioning of your site. This is why I guard against presumption: so I don’t make references to forms of European legislation (GDPR and ePrivacy) as if they are the singular authorities governing internet privacy law, or that legal expectations are formulated exclusively through civil law. You’re out of your depth here.
chrisMyzel 4y ago
I had exactly the same thought when coming to the site!
culi 4y ago
Where are you seeing these modals? I didn't get a single popup. Just a bottom banner with the options to accept or reject cookies. No popup to sign up
- dmitriid 4y ago
  This is what it looks like for me in mobile https://imgur.com/a/lTDE6CD https://imgur.com/a/lTDE6CD (second screenshot is when I clicked Deny All on the cookie banner)
  - skywal_l 4y ago
    Ironically, thanks to noscript, I don't see any of the popups mentioned on the original website, but I can't open your image ! Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      Haha. The internet has really failed us, hasn't it. Direct image links: https://i.imgur.com/1UwHC59.png https://i.imgur.com/1UwHC59.png and https://i.imgur.com/mIRmN7Q.png https://i.imgur.com/mIRmN7Q.png
      - aendruk 4y ago
        You’d think. But Imgur has fooled you, and actually still serves text/html with the full suite of their trash when other people follow those links.
diordiderot 4y ago
"If we don't someone else will" The dark patterns / bad behaviour works. If someone doesn't use them they fade into obscurity and the message never gets heard.
hgomersall 4y ago
As a meta point, the requirement to discuss ethics independently of one's ability to exercise said ethics is critical for honest discourse. This applies to general opinion too. I'd be surprised if the author of the piece has any influence on the web design, so discounting it on that basis seems rather limiting.
- golemotron 4y ago
  It does point out how ungrounded one's ethics might be if one can't even bother to adhere to them in the small. The piece could have been posted to a blog.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Because the messenger is not the message. The argument is so tired. It is unconvincing. Whereas it would be perfectly valid to dislike the opinion because it is published in a lefty publication, the web design annoyances described really have little to do with the political stance of the publisher. The op-ed author likely has no control over the web design. This site like "99.9%" of other sites looks just fine in the links text-only browser. The annoyances of web design usually depend in part on the browser. If one uses a browser where Javascipt, CSS, images and cookies are enabled, then one is at the whim of "web developers". Less so if one is using a simple HTML viewer like links, w3m, reader mode or some other way to read the text of the page. HN uses some Javascript. Does that mean every HN commenter favours Javascript. I make zero use of the Javascript that is in HN pages. I use a text-only browser. I do not see indented comment threading or text colours. Because I publish opinions on HN does not mean I use Javascript or even that I necessarily approve of HN's graphical design, whatever it may be. EDIT: Wow, HN just changed the title. It no longer matches the title chosen by the author. The author must be hitting a nerve with HN's "tech" worker reader base. I used the internet in the late 80s while there was still a rule against advertising and commercial activity. It was amazing. I used the www when it went public in 1993. There was generally no advertising and certainly no surveilance like today.
- 323 4y ago
  > Because the messenger is not the message. Jacobinmag it's not your average website. It's full on communism over there. So they should guard better against critiques like "some animals (our righteous website) are more equal than others (their commercial websites)"
riidom 4y ago
Compared to my general, average impression of news sites: 1) The amount of trackers is 4-5 times lower 2) The cookie banner is best-in-class: A directly visible "reject all" button 3) The modal, I half-way agree here, but at least appears only on first visit It is a commercial site, after all. I couldn't see any paywalled articles, but if you try to browse the archive by tags, it'll tell you to subscribe first. For a price of 1.60 per month, which is what I personally consider reasonable and sort of ten times lower than what news sites usually want you to pay.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pvg 4y ago
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aendruk 4y ago
  I’d argue that in the ironic case they’re no longer tangential.
  - pvg 4y ago
    You could, that wouldn't make them less uninteresting even if we somehow accept an exceptionally generous interpretation of irony that includes 'generically yelly tropecomment'.

arandomhuman 4y ago

I was not familiar with the publisher posting this article, but briefly overlooked your comment before opening the link. At first glance, I was amused, genuinely thinking this article/website a interesting parody of making a website with all the dark patterns and implementation of sign-up-to-mailing-list/tracking/shopping/subscription/etc. and was excited thinking it was awesome someone was so aware of the problems with the internet today they encapsulated the issues into the website itself satirically. But upon clicking around around further the author was indeed completely unaware of the irony of its own article.

hnbad 4y ago
Hipocrisy is a valid criticism but not a counter-argument. I believe the meme format is "you want to improve society somewhat yet you participate in it".
- arandomhuman 4y ago
  I don't see how my comment was proposing an argument to the content within the article. It was merely a criticism and would hope to it interpreted as such. Wouldn't be nice to see a higher level of quality and consistency in commentaries like this, especially when the title is as ambitious as something as 'fighting for the digital future'? I don't mean to sound rude, but your response sounds a bit presumptuous and complacent with hypocrisy.
streamlining 4y ago
What? The website has one pop up for me and it looks nice actually. Cookie consent notices are the fault of lacking browser standards, not individual web sites.

oh_sigh 4y ago

Try browsing by default with javascript off, and enabling it only for sites that don't work. It's actually not that annoying to do since many sites degrade gracefully and degrade the "features" I don't want anyway(like promo or cookie banners). I can read the whole article without any distraction, except for the bright red banner which remains at the top.

InCityDreams 4y ago
Bright red banner? Those are the things that really make me appreciate the pipette(?) tool in ublock. My joy of the internet somewhat improved with that, especially on return/ repeat visits to various sites.

fleetwoodsnack 4y ago

I’m not sure if this is genuine question or not (and forgive my presumption, if there is any, as I know not everyone is privileged with both a technical and legal education), but the reason these kinds of modals exist is because of (1) legal expectations, and (2) the organization’s function as a(n advocacy) publication and a likely desire to collapse two necessary but intrusive elements into a single interruption/intervention.

colechristensen 4y ago
You don’t need cookies or to force someone to decline to sign up for your newsletter to do those things.
- fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
  Again, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I would encourage you to (1) investigate the privacy laws behind cookie permissions and why consent forms are becoming ubiquitous, and (2) the UIUX logic governing prioritization of interactive elements. “Need” here is overdetermined. From a primordial perspective I suppose you could argue the design “force[s]” users to take certain actions, but it’s not like there isn’t a substantive and more intellectually honest take, which is that the modals are annoying but unextraordinary and in-line with standard legal expectations and design practices.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > but I would encourage you to (1) investigate the privacy laws behind cookie permissions and why consent forms are becoming ubiquitous If you're referring to GDPR and ePrivacy, then there's literally no reason to show that consent form for cookies that are strictly required for the functioning of your site. > and in-line with standard legal expectations and design practices. False on the legal expectation. Sadly true on the design practices.
    - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
      > If you're referring to GDPR and ePrivacy, then there's literally no reason to show that consent form for cookies that are strictly required for the functioning of your site. This is why I guard against presumption: so I don’t make references to forms of European legislation (GDPR and ePrivacy) as if they are the singular authorities governing internet privacy law, or that legal expectations are formulated exclusively through civil law. You’re out of your depth here.

chrisMyzel 4y ago

I had exactly the same thought when coming to the site!

culi 4y ago

Where are you seeing these modals? I didn't get a single popup. Just a bottom banner with the options to accept or reject cookies. No popup to sign up

dmitriid 4y ago
This is what it looks like for me in mobile https://imgur.com/a/lTDE6CD https://imgur.com/a/lTDE6CD (second screenshot is when I clicked Deny All on the cookie banner)
- skywal_l 4y ago
  Ironically, thanks to noscript, I don't see any of the popups mentioned on the original website, but I can't open your image ! Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    Haha. The internet has really failed us, hasn't it. Direct image links: https://i.imgur.com/1UwHC59.png https://i.imgur.com/1UwHC59.png and https://i.imgur.com/mIRmN7Q.png https://i.imgur.com/mIRmN7Q.png
    - aendruk 4y ago
      You’d think. But Imgur has fooled you, and actually still serves text/html with the full suite of their trash when other people follow those links.

diordiderot 4y ago

"If we don't someone else will" The dark patterns / bad behaviour works. If someone doesn't use them they fade into obscurity and the message never gets heard.

hgomersall 4y ago

As a meta point, the requirement to discuss ethics independently of one's ability to exercise said ethics is critical for honest discourse. This applies to general opinion too. I'd be surprised if the author of the piece has any influence on the web design, so discounting it on that basis seems rather limiting.

golemotron 4y ago
It does point out how ungrounded one's ethics might be if one can't even bother to adhere to them in the small. The piece could have been posted to a blog.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

Because the messenger is not the message. The argument is so tired. It is unconvincing. Whereas it would be perfectly valid to dislike the opinion because it is published in a lefty publication, the web design annoyances described really have little to do with the political stance of the publisher. The op-ed author likely has no control over the web design. This site like "99.9%" of other sites looks just fine in the links text-only browser. The annoyances of web design usually depend in part on the browser. If one uses a browser where Javascipt, CSS, images and cookies are enabled, then one is at the whim of "web developers". Less so if one is using a simple HTML viewer like links, w3m, reader mode or some other way to read the text of the page. HN uses some Javascript. Does that mean every HN commenter favours Javascript. I make zero use of the Javascript that is in HN pages. I use a text-only browser. I do not see indented comment threading or text colours. Because I publish opinions on HN does not mean I use Javascript or even that I necessarily approve of HN's graphical design, whatever it may be. EDIT: Wow, HN just changed the title. It no longer matches the title chosen by the author. The author must be hitting a nerve with HN's "tech" worker reader base. I used the internet in the late 80s while there was still a rule against advertising and commercial activity. It was amazing. I used the www when it went public in 1993. There was generally no advertising and certainly no surveilance like today.

323 4y ago
> Because the messenger is not the message. Jacobinmag it's not your average website. It's full on communism over there. So they should guard better against critiques like "some animals (our righteous website) are more equal than others (their commercial websites)"

riidom 4y ago

Compared to my general, average impression of news sites: 1) The amount of trackers is 4-5 times lower 2) The cookie banner is best-in-class: A directly visible "reject all" button 3) The modal, I half-way agree here, but at least appears only on first visit It is a commercial site, after all. I couldn't see any paywalled articles, but if you try to browse the archive by tags, it'll tell you to subscribe first. For a price of 1.60 per month, which is what I personally consider reasonable and sort of ten times lower than what news sites usually want you to pay.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pvg 4y ago

Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aendruk 4y ago
I’d argue that in the ironic case they’re no longer tangential.
- pvg 4y ago
  You could, that wouldn't make them less uninteresting even if we somehow accept an exceptionally generous interpretation of irony that includes 'generically yelly tropecomment'.