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Yes it's worth it. Dan Luu has always been worth to read whenever I read it. But I get it. I too have the Instagram disease and balk at long walls of text. It'

• dartos 2y ago
  This subject is interesting to me, sorry for the rant. Writers could try to split up their work to better appeal to an audience that does quick scans, then reads where it matters. This article may be great, but there’s not even any section headings, so I’m not able to gauge my own interest. In our era where there is so much content to consume and where so much of it is just hot garbage or advertising, I don’t want to spend time deeply reading everything in hopes that I care about it. I need to be able to asses that at a glance, then dive in if I deem it meaningful enough. Writers should probably change their style to accommodate their audience (if they care about really wide reach)
  • klum 2y ago
    Speculating here but I'd say a big part of the reason Dan Luu has as big a reach as he has is that he isn't the kind of writer who'll change his style to accommodate the audience that just wants to do a quick scan.
    • dartos 2y ago
      Maybe, but I don’t know Dan. Never read anything written by them (besides this) I’d like to read deeply about something interesting, but with so much LLM slop around, I’m much less willing to dive right into a long article.
  • CamperBob2 2y ago
    Writers could try to split up their work to better appeal to an audience that does quick scans, then reads where it matters. That was one of the original visions behind hypertext - that it would not only link documents together, but provide a way to summarize the content at varying levels of detail, allowing up-down traversal rather than just lateral links. MIP mapping for text, basically. We're starting to see a bit of a revival of that idea, where language models generate summaries at the paragraph level that readers can either browse quickly or use as a jumping-off point into the underlying original content. This page seems like a good application for that.
  • nottorp 2y ago
    > so much content to consume Well, I'd say part of the problem is you think of yourself as a content consumer. How things are called can be important.
    • dartos 2y ago
      We all are content consumers. It’s not a problem, just a fact. You consumed my content (my comment) and are now creating your own. What you spend your attention on is much more important now than even 10 years ago.
      • nottorp 2y ago
        Actually I'd call your comment an opinion, not "content". Unless, of course, you're commenting here in order to create "engagement" for monetary gain. But it does look to me like you're trying to have a conversation, which is an entirely different animal.
        • dartos 2y ago
          Those are not mutually exclusive. We are both creating content which hacker news serves up to people who read comments. We’re not the only ones this conversation is seen by. Hacker news is, among other things, a platform for YC to find talent and advertise its startups. People come here both for the posts and comments. The content we create and post here have clear commercial purpose even though we as the creators don’t necessarily benefit or care. Welcome to the internet.
          • nottorp 2y ago
            You're talking about the goals of the platform hosting us for free. I'm talking about our personal motivation, regardless of platform. And I'm trying to say that when the motivation is to 'create content' the result is worthless, and I think you're doing yourself a disservice accepting that.
            • 2y ago
• area51org 2y ago
  I don't know that the problem is short attention span. Poor communication has always been with us. I am sure Luu has compelling insights—what I was able to get through seemed interesting—but he is a poor communicator. It's not just that he presents a wall of text; his wording and his approach to communication tell me that he thinks if he just gets his thoughts recorded, that's enough. It is not enough.
  • jpm_sd 2y ago
    Yeah it reads as completely unedited. Needs another pass.
    • klausa 2y ago
      I'm really curious what makes you say feel that way, if you can put it into words? I think his style is quite particular (I think I would compare it to patio11 a little bit?), and I understand it not being everyone's cup of tea; but one thing I don't think I would ever say it feels unedited. To me, it feels _very_ edited — yes, there are occasional sentences with five sub-clauses in them, but they all feel very _deliberate_, and serve a particular stylistic goal.
      • Suppafly 2y ago
        >I think his style is quite particular (I think I would compare it to patio11 a little bit?) I find them quite different, patio11 is good about introducing a topic and easing you into, even if it's something you might not be initially interested in. Luu's writing isn't inviting at all. I'm sure it appeals to folks already familiar with his work, but there is nothing to draw in a new or not particularly interested reader.
      • lawn 2y ago
        For me two things jump out: Giant paragraphs (hard for the eyes to keep focus). Sparse amount of headers (contributes to the flow and easier to scan, to see if it's something I'm interested in).
      • duckmysick 2y ago
• soulofmischief 2y ago
  It's not the "Instagram disease", the page is completely unstyled and unsuited for reading. Even after using Firefox's Reader mode, the paragraphs are too dense. Some people are great writers but could benefit from a designer or editor.
  • liontwist 2y ago
    Those familiar with the site know it’s intentional to deliver content efficiently to a wide audience. You can’t read a long paragraph in reader mode?
    • dewey 2y ago
      Bad styling is intentional to deliver the content to a wider audience?
      • liontwist 2y ago
        You don’t recognize default HTML appearance?
        • dewey 2y ago
          I do, and it's not the default HTML appearance but the default style of how your browser chooses to show unstyled HTML. Just because it's the default doesn't mean it's suitable for reading and it was never thought of being that.
        • Sharlin 2y ago
          How exactly does unstyled HTML cater to a wider audience? That's just a non sequitur.
          • liontwist 2y ago
            Because it is a smaller download, is faster to render, easier for accessibility tools, and is more likely to work in readers and browsers of all kinds.
• Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  For me it's not the text but the (lack of) formatting, like it's best viewed on a 640x480 screen from the 90's.
  • BeefWellington 2y ago
    And if that's the goal, there's some very simple ways to achieve that wither through CSS or even just plain HTML.
• Suppafly 2y ago
  >But I get it. I too have the Instagram disease and balk at long walls of text. It's just that we do need to fight that... It's not even that, Dan's design decisions for the page make it actively annoying to read and that's before you even consider the writing decisions he's made. Presumably he's writing for an existing audience and feels no need to ease you into the material, but that's a huge turn off for folks coming from sites like this that aren't already primed to read it.