5 ms·
Site Is Closed on Sundays
- photonios 20d agoIn the Netherlands there are plenty of websites which close on Sunday for religious reasons. For example: https://www.babypark.nl https://www.babypark.nl
- t0mas88 20d agoThere is also a baby products online store in the Netherlands that for religious reasons is closed on Sunday. You can browse the site but you can't buy anything. The page is in Dutch, it explains that they're closed because get believe Sunday is a day for rest: https://www.babypark.nl/zondag/info-bp.html https://www.babypark.nl/zondag/info-bp.html
- yurishimo 20d agoHonestly, I don’t mind it. Our lives are so commercialized as it is. If I can’t order a new stroller until Monday, I think I will survive.
- DonHopkins 20d agoI have a huge problem with pharmacies being closed on Sunday, even in the Netherlands. I had to spend much more than the cost of the prescription itelf just to travel back and forth to Centraal Station where the only pharmacy that would take my prescription was open, instead of using the local one two blocks away that's closed on Sundays. lucumo: Ha ha! baby-dump.nl is such a hilarious name, I'm almost tempted to have a baby and change its diapers, just so I can use that web site and support them for being open on Sundays. (But not quite.) Or is it for scheduling the collection unwanted babies? Never mind... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYoNL4g5Vg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYoNL4g5Vg
- tosti 20d agoI had a WTF moment when I saw their logo for the first time, on quite a large building (possibly their main distribution center). Why they thought it'd be a good name I have no idea.
- skrebbel 20d agoSame for the SGP, the Dutch fundamentalist Christian party: https://sgp.nl/ https://sgp.nl/ I share few of their values but I quite appreciate this one.
- lucumo 20d agoThat was the reason I bought a lot of stuff at their competitor baby-dump.nl. Until BP bought BD, and instituted the same policy there... It's their site, they can do what they want. And as long as there's competition I can even admire them for making a sacrifice for something they believe in. This kind of stuff becomes a problem when it starts arguing that others must do this too. If someone argues that all shops must be closed because their religion forbids working on that day, then that's an issue. But as far as I know, the Baby Park people haven't done that. They made a personal moral choice and sacrifice. Good for them.
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- jhogervorst 20d agoI happened to want to order something there last Sunday. While digging into it, I notice that their closure seemed to be implemented only on the frontend using JS. By disabling some scripts, I was able to add products to my cart, which normally isn't possible on Sundays. In the end, I didn't proceed to place my order on Sunday. It felt a bit disrespectful, and it was already late. (So I ordered half an hour later, which was technically Monday.)
- guytv 20d agoWe have similar e-commerce sites in Israel that close on Saturdays for religious reasons. As someone living in a relegious country with religious parties in parliament, I see this as a slippery slope. It's a way for religious groups to normalize forcing their lifestyle on the rest of society. Religious mandates always tend to expand: what starts as "I don't care if you close your site on Sunday" can quickly escalate to "Why are you telling my wife and daughter how they should dress in public?" Beware
- DonHopkins 20d agoI find the idea of cleverly and conveniently outsmarting God with Shabbat elevators and ovens difficult to reconcile with taking one's religion seriously, respecting God, and following the spirit rather than merely the letter of its laws. But those are the harmless loopholes. The obscene version is ultra-Orthodox parties using political power to exempt their own sons from military service while authorizing summonses for everyone else's and sustaining a government accused of genocide in Gaza. What believers arrange for themselves is their own business. Exemptions for themselves and war for everyone else are not. God can presumably see through the elevator loophole. The rest of us can see through the conscription loophole.
- technothrasher 20d agoThe biggest camera store in NYC, B&H Photo, similarly closes their website checkout on Saturdays and on all the major Jewish holidays. It's mildly inconvenient, but it has never really stopped me from ordering from them. I think maybe one time it made me order from a competitor.
- atoav 20d agoThere are websites in Japan that are only "open" during Japanese business hours.
- walrus01 20d agoB&H Photo Video is probably the most well known example, they won't accept an order on the sabbath. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=b%26h+sabbath https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=b%26h+sab... But the site still functions to browse.
- asimovDev 20d agooff topic but I wonder why client is the first query parameter in that URL. I guess there's some stuff on the search page that changes based on what you are browsing from? they already have the user agent data so I can't imagine it's for marketing data tracking needs
- walrus01 20d agoI'm using the main line firefox release on MacOS here, and yeah it does seem to do that... Clearly google already knows what browser I'm on from useragent as the most rudimentary ID and other browser fingerprinting measures as well. (edit: one theory would be they're tracking how many URLs are copy/pasted and shared by firefox users to non-firefox users and then loaded by people with different browsers, there has to be some value to them in that data in the aggregate of millions of search page loads). I figured leaving it into the copy and pasted URL is harmless and ultimately mozilla derives the bulk of its revenue from its search deal with google, so it's also a way of supporting continued firefox development in the most minuscule way.
- supermatt 20d agoThe shop link is still “open”.
- zkmon 20d agoIn India, I remember many government websites that allowed form submission only during office hours.
- oytis 20d agoWe would warmly welcome him in Germany
- QuantumNomad_ 20d agoI told a friend one time, what if there was a web site that had opening hours. He said, you can already see the opening hours of all the stores and stuff on Google Maps. I said, no, not a website like that. I mean, the website itself is open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and outside of that it’s closed. My friend looked at me and just said, why? Idk, I think it would be neat, I said. My friend didn’t get it. This guy gets it.
- Arainach 20d agoPlenty of these exist. The biggest I'm aware of is B&H Photo Video.
- left-struck 20d agoHow does this work with time zones?
- fc417fc802 20d agoWhen you visit my site you are visiting my timezone. Same as if you tried to call me on the phone in the middle of your day but I was asleep during my night.
- QuantumNomad_ 20d agoExactly :)
- teiferer 20d agoWhat attracted me to computers as a kid in the 90s was the promise of an always-on, never moody, deterministic machine. That was magic and finally a fixed reliable point in life, forever. Plus, with the internet, suddenly the world came closer, no matter timezone, things are always there. We are already killing the deterministic part with LLMs. I can't trust the machine anymore to do tomorrow what I told it yesterday. Now we also want to remove the always-on aspect? Arbitrarily? Because it's ...cool? I don't get it.
- Nurdok 20d agoIn Israel, many sites are "closed" on Sabbath, unfortunately. This was a recent controversy about this: https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/rymwhdedmg https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/rymwhdedmg (Hebrew)
- UltraSane 20d agoB&H Photo's website can be browsed on the Sabbath but you can't order anything. The company is owned and operated by observant Orthodox Jewish members of the Satmar Hasidic community.
- I-M-S 20d agoAny idea how did they survive the switch from digital cameras to everybody taking photos with their smartphones?
- walrus01 20d agoIf you visit the B&H retail store in NYC they sell all kinds of stuff for basically everything that is more "pro" level which is beyond what you can achieve with a regular smartphone with its built in lenses. Particularly for video production. Highly worth the visit if you're ever in NYC and have never been to it. Lighting, audio stuff, equipment cases, backpacks, tripods, battery packs, that sort of thing. It's also stuff in the category of "Accessories" that have much profit margin built into them, much like how a Trek or Specialized branded road bicycle store makes much more profit from selling lights, bottle cages, shoes, than the bicycle itself. Additionally they sell tons of the accessories that can be used to turn a modern $1500 2160p60 video capable smartphone into something more useful for amateur/youtuber level videography, like smartphone gimbals, bluetooth lap mic/receiver setups, extra batteries, cases... Stuff like what the 'smallrig' phone cages do. https://www.smallrig.com/ca/list/Phone-Rig.html https://www.smallrig.com/ca/list/Phone-Rig.html B&H is much more than just still photo cameras.
- monideas 20d agoThey sell professional photo and video equipment.
- procaryote 20d agoIt's their site and they can do whatever they like, but it's pretty silly. If you want to avoid screens, avoid screens. Don't make your addiction my problem
- GaryBluto 20d agoI'm reminded of the type of recovering alcoholic who impetuously accuses anybody who they know has consumed alcohol of being slaves to the sauce themselves.
- Towaway69 20d ago"Trump is your president, don't make his problems to mine. If you vote for a shit president then keep him for yourselves and don't let him escape his sandbox." Spot the five differences.
- procaryote 20d agoI can't really spot the similarities.
- Towaway69 19d ago> Don't make your addiction my problem Don't make your complaint to my reading. If your annoyed about someone complaining about their addiction, don't read it and certainly don't tell me about your problems when you complain about others voicing their complaints. Get it? Your comment is just telling me what your complaint is: that you didn't want to read the article. Well then don't read it. But I don't care what you read or not read. As you don't care about others addictions.
- procaryote 18d agoThat's not it. I dont mind the article. I judge the person writing it because they are being silly. "I think I use screens too much so everyone should use screens less" is silly.
- nvader 20d agoSkeuomorpharaseeism
- stared 20d agoWith Internet, we live in an always-on culture. It contrasts with times before, when we actually had to wait for a monthly magazine, and even if we wanted to watch a movie, it was aired (say) the next Tue 7PM. While now we have all convenience, there is no anticipation - or rest.
- alansaber 20d agoHey. We still have TV shows that air once a week (and people loudly complain that it takes too long)
- marcinostefano 20d agoA well-known Catholic in Poland, he runs his own shop, which is also closed on Sundays. https://cejrowski.com/sklep/ https://cejrowski.com/sklep/
- ChrisArchitect 20d agoRelated: 2025 What if your website had business hours? (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647598
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- hubraumhugo 20d agoLove it. I started a fun side project this weekend to also reduce my screen time: turning articles I bookmark online into a personal printed magazine that I can then read offline [0]. I just printed the first personal edition that I will read on my flight next week, including a few articles I found on HN :) [0] https://www.unscroll.ch https://www.unscroll.ch
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- nubinetwork 20d agoStuff like this will really break your visibility on search engines like google etc.
- alansaber 20d agoFor good reason, lol
- tonyedgecombe 20d agoWhich doesn't really matter anymore as all Google will do is slurp it up and regurgitate it without attribution.
- walrus01 20d agoIn the US state of New Jersey some counties restrict the sales of tools and hardware (like something you might need to urgently buy for a home repair from Home Depot) on Sundays: https://www.google.com/search?&q=new+jersey+blue+laws+tools+and+hardware https://www.google.com/search?&q=new+jersey+blue+laws+tools+... As a person from the west coast it is always funny to me to encounter places with "blue laws" for no product sales on Sundays, or "dry counties", primarily in the US south/southeast.
- p_l 20d agoThe first time I was in Silicon Valley, the most surprising thing was that equivalent of blue laws was every day with how early everything closed. Still makes me wonder how anyone gets anything done, OTOH it explains how door dash, uber, etc could happen there - other places had less demand...
- g0ld3nrati0 20d ago"shop" still works
- ahmedhossamdev 20d ago[dead]
- mattlondon 20d agoI find all this anti-screen stuff kinda weird. Why avoid screens one day week? Do you also avoid electricity? Running water and sanitation? Refuse to use a wheel or mechanical advantage? It's almost Amish to me. Where do you draw the line, and why? Why a screens but not e.g. electromagnetism? I have young kids. There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment - that using a computer/tablet/phone is somehow inherently bad and harmful. My kids love watching TV but I am fortunate that they also love imaginative play with traditional toys (teddy bears, Lego, cardboard boxes etc) more and they only watch shows maybe 1 or 2 hours a month. I think it is because we don't have a physical TV in the house - there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids). I think this is part of the problem. It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them. Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction. But I do not understand why on earth you would not use these amazing, life-improving, wondrous tools? Like if you needed to hammer in a nail you refuse to use a metal hammer "because technology" and what? you just bludgeon it in with your fists instead? I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.
- YeahThisIsMe 20d ago>Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction. That part is precisely the problem. "Just get help for your addiction" is not how anything works. It's incredibly hard for an addict to stop using the brain rot stuff. A lot of very smart people make a lot of money making it as hard as possible.
- mattlondon 20d agoYep no one said it would be easy. It's hard for a smoker or drinker to get over their addiction too. That's why you need help. But you don't need to eliminate all forms of fermentation or combustion from your life to get over an alcohol or cigarette addiction. You don't need to eliminate all screens from your life to get over your tiktok addiction.
- VBprogrammer 20d agoI remember back in the days a Car Insurance website which only allowed you to use it during working hours. Never understood the mechanism, surely they weren't getting quotes live from actuaries or anything.
- mrighele 20d agoIt's not been the case for probably more than 20 years, but I remember that in the past the official website of the Italian Postal Service [1] used to be closed out of office hours. https://poste.it https://poste.it
- petterroea 20d agoJapanese websites still do this. If you buy shinkansen tickets between 23:00-05:00 you get: * JR central - you can buy, but not reserve seats, as the system actually registers your ticket at 5am * Jr east - you cannot buy. Some banks/government sites also simply don't want to work at night. Very frustrating. To me it spells incompetence, but maybe there's some non-technical stakeholder who made a stupid rule once. For JR its probably some nightly accounting system - not 100% sure but I assume all the modern systems are just plugged on top of the ancient ones just like the airline industry does it.
- alansaber 20d agoTurning a static site off is excellent ragebait
- cubefox 20d agoI first thought it was a neat idea, but the exception for his shop makes the closure look a little hypocritical. "This site is closed on Sundays -- except the shop of course, the actual type of thing that is usually open or closed in the physical world, because when money comes into play, there is no pretending it wasn't just for show."
- keiferski 20d agoMost non-restaurant stores are closed in Poland on Sundays. At first I found it a bit inconvenient, but as I've lived here longer (going on ten years) I really appreciate it. It's a forced "slow down" day that's society-wide. It also helps push back against the constant desire to inject money and capital into every aspect of life. It would never be allowed in the US, but I do think a designated "don't buy stuff" day once a week would be a really good idea, as well.
- psp99 20d agoSame in DACH
- dwedge 20d agoUnless you can also send packages there
- keiferski 20d agoNot sure I understand your comment. On Sundays, you can send packages via paczkomats (outdoor lockers) and convenience stores (Zabkas) but the post office, DHL, UPS, etc. offices are closed.
- dwedge 20d agoI meant Żabka and Delikatesy use that loophole to stay open, so thousands of shops are still open
- keiferski 20d agoAh right. Well normal restaurants are all open too. Personally I would let grocery stores stay open, but having Zabka, Carrefour Express, etc. open is a decent compromise.
- gpvos 20d agoI'm curious why that is a loophole at all. Post offices are traditionally closed on Sundays all over Europe as far as I know, so sending or retrieving packages on Sunday is not a fundamental right or something. (And if you really want it, there are the automated lockers nowadays.)
- DonHopkins 20d agoThis makes about as much sense as blue laws, and suffers from the same failure mode: controlling other people is not a substitute for self-control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States Sunday is my day for boycotting religion's effects on society, so I take a break from observing any form of worship, abstinence, or superstition on Sunday, just as I do every other day of the week. Mitch Hedberg would appreciate my internal consistency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHA5CIL0fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHA5CIL0fg If screen time is bad for you, why not reduce your own screen time every day? That would be seven times as effective. And why go out of your way to eliminate other people's screen time instead of your own? You don't have to turn off your server to keep yourself from opening your own web page. In fact, the server isn't off at all: it remains online all Sunday to serve a paternalistic sermon telling everyone to go away, complete with a link to a swag shop that remains open for business, like a church with a gift shop. None of this prevents you from reading a cached copy, working on the site locally, or watching stand-up comedy and cat videos on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9oitkXG3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9oitkXG3Y There is a purely client-side, and far more effective, solution: just don't open your own website, or anything else on your screen. Withholding it from everybody else substitutes access control for self-control. Obviously this is nowhere near as malicious or consequential as opposing same-sex marriage. But it follows the same logic on a much smaller scale: "I choose to abstain from this, therefore you must abstain from it too." The bigots aren't satisfied with simply not marrying someone of the same sex themselves; they feel compelled to make love illegal for everyone else, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 1/4 days a year, for an entire lifetime. He owns the site and is entitled to close it whenever he likes. But calling the inconvenience "encouragement" doesn't make it any less paternalistic. If he practices what he preaches, it's a pity he won't see or engage with this discussion of his Sunday closure while it's still open -- or at least while it's still fresh. But if I love his website, I can read it on archive.org any day of the week. So what's next -- blocking archive.org?
- Stitch4223 20d agoThey are technically incorrect. Sundays last about 50 hours globally. From Kiritimati (UTC+14) to Baker Island and Howland Island (UTC-12). I wish more sites would apply the 50 hours closing window, preferably 3.36 days a week.
- gpvos 20d agoWhile I am generally against geolocation use by websites, it would be cool to have a website that closed when it's Sunday where you are.
- PeterStuer 20d agoI remember the records query section of the Belgian National Bank website used to be closed outside business hours (weekdays 9-5). https://www.nbb.be/nl/balanscentrale/raadplegen/consult https://www.nbb.be/nl/balanscentrale/raadplegen/consult
- Wowfunhappy 20d ago> I’m trying to avoid screens at least one day out of the week, and this is my way of encouraging others to consider doing the same. Sorry but I find this incredibly paternalistic. What if I am avoiding screens one day out of the week—on Saturday? Heck, maybe I avoid screens Monday—Saturday and Sunday is my only screen day? It's great that you're avoiding screens on Sunday! Really! Blocking pages for everyone else just makes the world a very slightly worse place for no benefit.
- mmahemoff 20d agoVisitor’s Sunday or owner’s Sunday? It seems to be the former as the stated purpose suggests a PSA function and less about reducing owner’s burden in maintaining uptime. If that’s the case, you could consider using pre-render JavaScript to detect what day it is in the browser. Then temporarily redirect Sunday-identifying browsers to a “Closed On Sunday” page.
- evgpbfhnr 20d agoIt's actually already implemented in javascript, I didn't understand what this was about until I turned js on and saw the blocked screen.
- ClearAndPresent 20d agoI spent a while trying to figure out why the site was open and working perfectly. Turns out uBlock keeps the site open on a Sunday and it's so splendidly written that it works like one of those old-time websites; the links work when you click them.
- gpvos 20d agoThe website of the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a christian newspaper (of a very strict Reformed variety) in the Netherlands, is closed on Sundays as well. https://www.rd.nl/ https://www.rd.nl/
- prokopton 20d agoWell, we all went to this guy's site when we would not have otherwise. He won.
- theturtle 20d ago[dead]
- andrewstuart 20d agoCute. Makes no sense.