7 ms·

It's hardly unique to Twitter but it's so frustrating how much "content" online requires an account. Whenever my friends send me something on Instagram or TikTo

It's hardly unique to Twitter but it's so frustrating how much "content" online requires an account. Whenever my friends send me something on Instagram or TikTok or a restaurant puts their menu on Instagram, I'm barraged with a thousand dark patterns forcing me to log in. Even Reddit is doing it now. I do wonder how much of this is to boost engagement versus another "wonderful" side effect from LLMs since they need training data.

kelvinjps10 2mo ago
libredirect is very good for these kinda of things. But the platforms keep trying to make it stop working so is a constant battle of the frontents to build workarounds
duskwuff 2mo ago
Twitter was doing stupid growth hacks, like requiring login to view replies, even before AI scrapers were a concern. (And I suspect many of the scrapers are just using logged-in accounts.)
- dylan604 2mo ago
  > before AI scrapers were a concern didn't the scrapers scrape everything well before concerns were raised. were the concerns raised after the LLMs were released and then people realized what happened? so, forcing logins just closed the barn door after the horses got out.
micromacrofoot 2mo ago
It's tracking and data harvesting, always is
jackb4040 2mo ago
The other day someone on here gave me a useful framing. Non-publicly accessible sites are the dark web. If a project told you they were moving all their docs and support to the dark web they would sound crazy, but if they say they're moving it to discord (the same thing) then it's fine.
- itintheory 2mo ago
  >the dark web I prefer the older term "deep web" [1]. It's mentioned in Wikipedia that the terms are used as synonyms now, but I think it's important to differentiate between sites behind login/authentication/etc, and sites that are still openly accessible, albeit over Tor, i2p, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web
skinfaxi 2mo ago
I think we will see the internet closed off more and more as AI usage grows.
xigoi 2mo ago
> Whenever my friends send me something on Instagram or TikTok Reply with a screenshot showing that you can’t view the content. > a restaurant puts their menu on Instagram Don’t go there. Plenty of other restaurants to choose from. They just lost a customer due to their hostility.
- alightsoul 2mo ago
  That customer is the exception because most are signed in all the time
- TaLiTr 2mo ago
  > Don’t go there. Plenty of other restaurants to choose from. They just lost a customer due to their hostility. This is a wild take to me. Around here pretty much nobody posts their menu online on any website, the technical literacy is just quite poor. If you limited yourself to places that did, you'd only get big fast-food chains.
  - xigoi 2mo ago
    Given the tone of the post, I was assuming the menu was only available on Instagram, i.e. they did not have a paper menu. Obviously if they have a paper menu, which most restaurants do, you can just go there and read it.
    - TaLiTr 2mo ago
      I didn't assume a paper menu, I'd love it if there was though. Those at least can be scanned, pinned to the fridge, etc. But in my experience they mostly have a board over the counter that I'm forced to stand there and take slightly blurry photos of.

kelvinjps10 2mo ago

libredirect is very good for these kinda of things. But the platforms keep trying to make it stop working so is a constant battle of the frontents to build workarounds

duskwuff 2mo ago

Twitter was doing stupid growth hacks, like requiring login to view replies, even before AI scrapers were a concern. (And I suspect many of the scrapers are just using logged-in accounts.)

dylan604 2mo ago
> before AI scrapers were a concern didn't the scrapers scrape everything well before concerns were raised. were the concerns raised after the LLMs were released and then people realized what happened? so, forcing logins just closed the barn door after the horses got out.

micromacrofoot 2mo ago

It's tracking and data harvesting, always is

jackb4040 2mo ago

The other day someone on here gave me a useful framing. Non-publicly accessible sites are the dark web. If a project told you they were moving all their docs and support to the dark web they would sound crazy, but if they say they're moving it to discord (the same thing) then it's fine.

itintheory 2mo ago
>the dark web I prefer the older term "deep web" [1]. It's mentioned in Wikipedia that the terms are used as synonyms now, but I think it's important to differentiate between sites behind login/authentication/etc, and sites that are still openly accessible, albeit over Tor, i2p, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web

skinfaxi 2mo ago

I think we will see the internet closed off more and more as AI usage grows.

xigoi 2mo ago

> Whenever my friends send me something on Instagram or TikTok Reply with a screenshot showing that you can’t view the content. > a restaurant puts their menu on Instagram Don’t go there. Plenty of other restaurants to choose from. They just lost a customer due to their hostility.

alightsoul 2mo ago
That customer is the exception because most are signed in all the time
TaLiTr 2mo ago
> Don’t go there. Plenty of other restaurants to choose from. They just lost a customer due to their hostility. This is a wild take to me. Around here pretty much nobody posts their menu online on any website, the technical literacy is just quite poor. If you limited yourself to places that did, you'd only get big fast-food chains.
- xigoi 2mo ago
  Given the tone of the post, I was assuming the menu was only available on Instagram, i.e. they did not have a paper menu. Obviously if they have a paper menu, which most restaurants do, you can just go there and read it.
  - TaLiTr 2mo ago
    I didn't assume a paper menu, I'd love it if there was though. Those at least can be scanned, pinned to the fridge, etc. But in my experience they mostly have a board over the counter that I'm forced to stand there and take slightly blurry photos of.