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Web page annoyances that I don't inflict on you

(rachelbythebay.com)
569 points todsacerdoti | 3 comments | 05 Jan 25 01:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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swyx ◴[05 Jan 25 02:41 UTC] No.42599320[source]▶
this is exactly the sort of idealistic post that appeals to HN and nobody else. i dont have a problem with that apart from when technologists try to take these "back to basics" stuff to shame the substacks and the company blogs out there that have to be more powered by economics than by personal passion.

its -obvious- things are mostly "better"/can be less "annoying" when money/resources are not a concern. i too would like to spend all my time in a world with no scarcity.

the engineering challenge is finding alignments where "better for reader" overlaps with "better for writer" - as google did with doubleclick back in the day.

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imoreno ◴[05 Jan 25 02:59 UTC] No.42599404[source]▶
To me, it seems like basically everything on this page is both better for reader and better for writer. Which ones are not, in your opinion?
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1. lolinder ◴[05 Jan 25 03:19 UTC] No.42599485[source]▶
All the tracking stuff is better for advertisers than going without, and most writers are paid by advertisers. So transitively it would be reasonable to say that tracking is good for writers and bad for readers.
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2. imoreno ◴[05 Jan 25 03:26 UTC] No.42599516[source]▶
People oversell this tracking/advertising. It's not a goldmine for every site. For this blog, if she wanted to include analytics into her decision about what content to produce, does she really need super high resolution stuff like where people moved their mouse? Would she ever make a significant income from these "ads", or selling the data for possibly pennies?

Besides, just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad (I know the blog author would disagree). A lot of sites go nuts and have like 20 different trackers that probably track the same things. People just tack stuff on, YAGNI be damned, that's a big part of the problem and it's a net drain on both parties.

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3. arkh ◴[06 Jan 25 12:44 UTC] No.42610107[source]▶
> just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad

Google Analytics is the worse. Not on an individual website but by the fact it is almost everywhere. So Google has been getting everyone's web history since more than a decade.

Add Android, gmail, the social "share" or "login with" integrations and any Stasi member would have called you delirious for thinking this kind of surveillance apparatus was possible. Even more that people would willingly accept it.