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Web page annoyances that I don't inflict on you

(rachelbythebay.com)
569 points todsacerdoti | 7 comments | 05 Jan 25 01:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.915s | source | bottom
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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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1. StressedDev ◴[05 Jan 25 06:47 UTC] No.42600198[source]▶
Substack's UI is fairly minimal and does not appear to have many anti-patterns. My only complaint is that it is not easy to see just the people I am subscribed to.
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2. ghssds ◴[05 Jan 25 07:57 UTC] No.42600391[source]▶
Substack disable zooming on mobile and I hate it.
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3. nayuki ◴[05 Jan 25 08:24 UTC] No.42600475[source]▶
Substack fails on several points for me.

On the first or second page view of any particular blog, the platform likes to greet you with a modal dialog to subscribe to the newsletter, and you have to find and click the "No thanks" text to continue.

Once you're on a page with text content, the header bar disappears when you scroll downward but reappears when you scroll upward. I scroll a lot - in both directions - because I skim and jump around, not reading in a rigidly linear way. My scrolling behavior is perfectly fine on static/traditional pages. It interacts badly with Substack's "smart" header bar, whose animation constantly grabs my attention, and also it hides the text at the top of the page - which might be the very text I wanted to read if it wasn't being covered up by the "smart" header bar.

4. arrowsmith ◴[05 Jan 25 09:49 UTC] No.42600756[source]▶
Really? I can still zoom in and out in the normal way on a Substack article on Safari and iOS.

What did they disable exactly?

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5. oneeyedpigeon ◴[05 Jan 25 12:24 UTC] No.42601326{3}[source]▶
I see the zoom-breaking on android. I also see the top and bottom dick bars, a newsletter popup on every article, and links opening in new windows.
6. bandrami ◴[05 Jan 25 22:13 UTC] No.42605493[source]▶
Doesn't substack nag you to log in? That's a non-starter for me
7. tensor ◴[05 Jan 25 23:06 UTC] No.42605841[source]▶
Substack absolutely refuses to stop emailing you. It's simply not possible to subscribe to paid content and NOT have them either email you or force push notifications. Enough people have complained about this that it's pretty obvious this is intentional on their part.