3 ms·

These things are so annoying. Is there a website benchmark not for speed, not for security but for "annoyingness"? I guess there is some overlap with accessibil

by chrsw 2y ago

These things are so annoying. Is there a website benchmark not for speed, not for security but for "annoyingness"? I guess there is some overlap with accessibility, but that's not exactly what I'm thinking of. I asked Copilot and searched Google but couldn't really come up with anything.

kevindamm 2y ago
It is the inverse of what engagement is supposed to be measuring, but it turns out that optimizing for engagement takes you down a darker path...
- dylan604 2y ago
  When I see a site that's clearly over enthusiastic about this stuff, I just close the tab. So their focus on keeping engagement with shenanigans actually shortens the engagement ending in a lost potential.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    That depends on what's being measured, most especially by way of survivor bias. If the only people whose time-on-site is measured are those who 1) don't blacklist the site, 2) don't disable JS, and 3) don't immediately leave and never return, then annoyances may well give apparent measurement of longer time-on-site as the remaining readership is curated to those who will tolerate (or have no alternative to) such bullshit. Web metrics are very poorly understood even now. YouTube's infamous experiment where latency improvements degraded apparent site performance ... because people with exceedingly marginal connections could now actually use the site if even very poorly. (I can't find that story though it's from ~10--15 years ago. Both my DDG-fu and FastGPT-fu (Kagi) are failing me. I'm pretty sure HN has discussed this at least once.)
- nicbou 2y ago
  My policy is "if it doesn't improve upon Reader Mode, don't add it".
nightpool 2y ago
CLS was roughly designed to measure annoyingness in terms of "moving layout elements". I'm sure Google has even more nuanced signals to measure e.g. ad coverage vs content coverage
- dylan604 2y ago
  > I'm sure Google has even more nuanced signals to measure e.g. ad coverage vs content coverage Let me guess, in Google's mind, the more ad coverage the better even if sacrificing content?

by chrsw 2y ago

kevindamm 2y ago

It is the inverse of what engagement is supposed to be measuring, but it turns out that optimizing for engagement takes you down a darker path...

dylan604 2y ago
When I see a site that's clearly over enthusiastic about this stuff, I just close the tab. So their focus on keeping engagement with shenanigans actually shortens the engagement ending in a lost potential.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  That depends on what's being measured, most especially by way of survivor bias. If the only people whose time-on-site is measured are those who 1) don't blacklist the site, 2) don't disable JS, and 3) don't immediately leave and never return, then annoyances may well give apparent measurement of longer time-on-site as the remaining readership is curated to those who will tolerate (or have no alternative to) such bullshit. Web metrics are very poorly understood even now. YouTube's infamous experiment where latency improvements degraded apparent site performance ... because people with exceedingly marginal connections could now actually use the site if even very poorly. (I can't find that story though it's from ~10--15 years ago. Both my DDG-fu and FastGPT-fu (Kagi) are failing me. I'm pretty sure HN has discussed this at least once.)
nicbou 2y ago
My policy is "if it doesn't improve upon Reader Mode, don't add it".

nightpool 2y ago

CLS was roughly designed to measure annoyingness in terms of "moving layout elements". I'm sure Google has even more nuanced signals to measure e.g. ad coverage vs content coverage

dylan604 2y ago
> I'm sure Google has even more nuanced signals to measure e.g. ad coverage vs content coverage Let me guess, in Google's mind, the more ad coverage the better even if sacrificing content?