4 ms·

The faster a web site asks me for an email address determines how fast I bail on even looking at their product/tool, or if I have no choice I put in a bogus ema

The faster a web site asks me for an email address determines how fast I bail on even looking at their product/tool, or if I have no choice I put in a bogus email address to get past it, if it is one of those damn forms that sends you a link I use one of the various public inbox/temporary email address sites so I don't have to deal with the attempts to bring me back into the conversion funnel when I was just seeking information.

Gigachad 3y ago
The site owners don’t care. If something works on 99% of people and pushes away 1%, they will keep doing it.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  I'm sure that's true. But I am fairly sure we live in the world where when something works on 3% of the visitors and the previous thing works on 2.6%, the company does the new thing. That's nearly 20% growth! Meanwhile, 97% reject their service.
- criddell 3y ago
  Are you saying ransom sign-ups can convert 99% of a site’s visitors?
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    The actual numbers are made up, but the point is that more people are either signing up or ignoring, than people leaving the site.
data-ottawa 3y ago
Would it be better if I hold off until you scroll? After all, you’re more engaged then!
- kreeben 3y ago
  I would prefer if you during page load first rendered the most obvious call for action and then, at the exact moment I try to click it you dynamically render another action button at the exact position of the first, bringing me to instead go to the register newsletter form while making me feel extremely enraged, sry, engaged. Happy, no. Engaged (in rage), very much so.
  - data-ottawa 3y ago
    The good news is so many people are signing up for our email! The bad news is for some reason email reads and click through just dropped off a cliff, is like the emails no longer arrive or something.
    - dreamcompiler 3y ago
      Side issue but it still amuses me that companies think they can accurately measure email reads. I'm not talking about mass marketers where it doesn't matter but banks, which are required by law to switch you back to paper mail if they think your email address isn't working. The reason you think I'm not reading my emails is that my email client doesn't autoload images, and I keep it that way because it turns off a malware infection vector, you dim bulbs.
      - Sylamore 3y ago
        Yeah, it was creepy the first few times Chase bank begged for more ways to contact me "because you don't seem to read our emails" for marketing. So far they haven't threatened to move me back to paper bills I guess cause the email isn't bouncing. I've noticed over the last couple of years in particular that more and more emails coming in are image based only, with no plain text or even alternate text so that if you won't load images you can't even tell what the email was about. Yeah those I never read.
- Sylamore 3y ago
  Don't forget to pop-up a full overlay on the screen if I happen to move my mouse outside of the browser rendering window asking me for my email address, so that if I did tab away from the page now all I see is a full screen ad and not the content I was looking at before.
qudat 3y ago
This has been a pet peeve of mine as well. I avoid sites that require logins. I’ve been experimenting with alternate authentication/authorization mechanisms. It’s a major reason why I created https://prose.sh https://prose.sh to explore what’s possible. We don’t require an email and only ask for it on https://feeds.sh https://feeds.sh because it’s an rss-to-email notification service. Read only websites and write SSH apps are pretty congruent to the HN bubble. There’s an added benefit that only people that can open a terminal can create an account.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  I avoid apps that require logins too, unless there's some obvious reason why they need them. I shitcan most new apps I download now because: 1. They insist on a login for a utility that clearly runs locally on my phone. 2. They require permissions like location or contacts that they clearly don't need. 3. They start sending me upsell notifications once an hour, forever when even once a year is too much. I know I can turn off notifications but it's a PITA to do it manually every time I install a new app.

Gigachad 3y ago

The site owners don’t care. If something works on 99% of people and pushes away 1%, they will keep doing it.

dsr_ 3y ago
I'm sure that's true. But I am fairly sure we live in the world where when something works on 3% of the visitors and the previous thing works on 2.6%, the company does the new thing. That's nearly 20% growth! Meanwhile, 97% reject their service.
criddell 3y ago
Are you saying ransom sign-ups can convert 99% of a site’s visitors?
- Gigachad 3y ago
  The actual numbers are made up, but the point is that more people are either signing up or ignoring, than people leaving the site.

data-ottawa 3y ago

Would it be better if I hold off until you scroll? After all, you’re more engaged then!

kreeben 3y ago
I would prefer if you during page load first rendered the most obvious call for action and then, at the exact moment I try to click it you dynamically render another action button at the exact position of the first, bringing me to instead go to the register newsletter form while making me feel extremely enraged, sry, engaged. Happy, no. Engaged (in rage), very much so.
- data-ottawa 3y ago
  The good news is so many people are signing up for our email! The bad news is for some reason email reads and click through just dropped off a cliff, is like the emails no longer arrive or something.
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    Side issue but it still amuses me that companies think they can accurately measure email reads. I'm not talking about mass marketers where it doesn't matter but banks, which are required by law to switch you back to paper mail if they think your email address isn't working. The reason you think I'm not reading my emails is that my email client doesn't autoload images, and I keep it that way because it turns off a malware infection vector, you dim bulbs.
    - Sylamore 3y ago
      Yeah, it was creepy the first few times Chase bank begged for more ways to contact me "because you don't seem to read our emails" for marketing. So far they haven't threatened to move me back to paper bills I guess cause the email isn't bouncing. I've noticed over the last couple of years in particular that more and more emails coming in are image based only, with no plain text or even alternate text so that if you won't load images you can't even tell what the email was about. Yeah those I never read.
Sylamore 3y ago
Don't forget to pop-up a full overlay on the screen if I happen to move my mouse outside of the browser rendering window asking me for my email address, so that if I did tab away from the page now all I see is a full screen ad and not the content I was looking at before.

qudat 3y ago

This has been a pet peeve of mine as well. I avoid sites that require logins. I’ve been experimenting with alternate authentication/authorization mechanisms. It’s a major reason why I created https://prose.sh https://prose.sh to explore what’s possible. We don’t require an email and only ask for it on https://feeds.sh https://feeds.sh because it’s an rss-to-email notification service. Read only websites and write SSH apps are pretty congruent to the HN bubble. There’s an added benefit that only people that can open a terminal can create an account.

dreamcompiler 3y ago
I avoid apps that require logins too, unless there's some obvious reason why they need them. I shitcan most new apps I download now because: 1. They insist on a login for a utility that clearly runs locally on my phone. 2. They require permissions like location or contacts that they clearly don't need. 3. They start sending me upsell notifications once an hour, forever when even once a year is too much. I know I can turn off notifications but it's a PITA to do it manually every time I install a new app.