The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
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@pheonix An interesting overlap here is with accessibility. Specifically screen reader accessibility is my angle, but cognative load is a real thing and curves differently, and any visual issues would become problematic with what you point out. But take screen readers. Assuming the article isn't paywalled, if we don't have an ad blocker, all those ad frames literally slow down navigation of the entire page, including arrowing through the text, the modals can be half visible and sometimes not actually in focus but disable interaction with the page, and those frames? Not a single ad frame in the history of ever has ever been accessible. They generate text that's marked as inserted over and over again, with image links who's alt text is a stream of easily hundreds of characters, the raw text of an add link. I saw one of those reach 900 characters. We don't even know what they're advertising And the user has to navigate *through* every one of these, there is no such thing as skimming. Sure, we could navigate by heading or something, but there's actual text below that frame without any markup besides not in the frame. NVDA, at least, provides a gesture that says exit current container from the bottom, so you should be able to get out oa f rame that way, except there is a combination of nesting and chains going on. Without uBLock origin, most of the web is downright completely unusable. And on iOS? We just don't browse the web.
@pheonix Also, if you think the text shifting down a bit is bad and destroys spatial mapping? Try the reading cursor being thrown randomly about the page or up to the top every time one of those loads, because the sheer scope of the DOM refresh caused it to scramble and lose its place. Like if you were reading a book and kept getting randomly jumped back to the beginning of the chapter or somewhere 15 pages from where you are now.
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P pixelate@tweesecake.social shared this topic
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The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
When a news website forces you through three dismissive actions just to read a headline, they are burning your cognitive budget before delivering any value. You are greeted by a cookie banner taking up the bottom 30% of your screen, a "Subscribe!" modal dead center, an autoplaying video pinned to the corner and a prompt begging to send you push notifications.
I wrote about the state of news websites. Would love to hear your thoughts
The 49MB Web Page
A look at modern news websites. How programmatic ad-tech, huge payloads and hostile architecture destroyed the reading experience.
(thatshubham.com)
#enshittification #darkpattern #web #technology #socialmedia #indieweb #ux #privacy
@pheonix personally, I have zero tolerance for the abuse and consent violations of websites, as they burned through all my patience to the point that I not only ran out of spoons, but also forks and chopsticks and only have knifes remaining.
And the only winning move re: #Enshittification is to refuse to submit to it!
Kevin Karhan :verified: (@kkarhan@infosec.space)
@whybird@aus.social @pheonix@hachyderm.io @gruber@mastodon.social yeah, the #Enshittification is fucking real… - I don't like #ReadyPlayerOne [becoming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw) #reality!
Infosec.Space (infosec.space)
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@pheonix personally, I have zero tolerance for the abuse and consent violations of websites, as they burned through all my patience to the point that I not only ran out of spoons, but also forks and chopsticks and only have knifes remaining.
And the only winning move re: #Enshittification is to refuse to submit to it!
Kevin Karhan :verified: (@kkarhan@infosec.space)
@whybird@aus.social @pheonix@hachyderm.io @gruber@mastodon.social yeah, the #Enshittification is fucking real… - I don't like #ReadyPlayerOne [becoming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw) #reality!
Infosec.Space (infosec.space)
@pheonix #WhatsMissing is not just people refusing to do so, but to quid-pro-quo this shit with more aggressive #Contermeasures than ever before.
- Literally using @torproject / #TorBrowser on highest safety settings and blocking all the #JavaScript #malware before it even gets loaded.
- Cuz otherwise we'll see this abuse only get worse!
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@pheonix #WhatsMissing is not just people refusing to do so, but to quid-pro-quo this shit with more aggressive #Contermeasures than ever before.
- Literally using @torproject / #TorBrowser on highest safety settings and blocking all the #JavaScript #malware before it even gets loaded.
- Cuz otherwise we'll see this abuse only get worse!
@pheonix Some folks claimed this #Enshittification is basically "brain rape" but I consider this a bad, distasteful comparison.
- Tho I can see why people come to that conclusion...
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@pheonix personally, I have zero tolerance for the abuse and consent violations of websites, as they burned through all my patience to the point that I not only ran out of spoons, but also forks and chopsticks and only have knifes remaining.
And the only winning move re: #Enshittification is to refuse to submit to it!
Kevin Karhan :verified: (@kkarhan@infosec.space)
@whybird@aus.social @pheonix@hachyderm.io @gruber@mastodon.social yeah, the #Enshittification is fucking real… - I don't like #ReadyPlayerOne [becoming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw) #reality!
Infosec.Space (infosec.space)
@kkarhan that video ought to come with a TW cause wow, we're moving in that direction pretty fast.
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@kkarhan that video ought to come with a TW cause wow, we're moving in that direction pretty fast.
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The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
When a news website forces you through three dismissive actions just to read a headline, they are burning your cognitive budget before delivering any value. You are greeted by a cookie banner taking up the bottom 30% of your screen, a "Subscribe!" modal dead center, an autoplaying video pinned to the corner and a prompt begging to send you push notifications.
I wrote about the state of news websites. Would love to hear your thoughts
The 49MB Web Page
A look at modern news websites. How programmatic ad-tech, huge payloads and hostile architecture destroyed the reading experience.
(thatshubham.com)
#enshittification #darkpattern #web #technology #socialmedia #indieweb #ux #privacy
@pheonix Thank you for this write-up! Similar trend as with CPU and RAM. We have a lot more compute nowadays, so let's spend it a lot less efficiently (ugh).
This made me wonder though, how much of this bloat disappears if you start paying? Do they still shove ads and autoplay videos in your face? (I don't have high hopes here)
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The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
When a news website forces you through three dismissive actions just to read a headline, they are burning your cognitive budget before delivering any value. You are greeted by a cookie banner taking up the bottom 30% of your screen, a "Subscribe!" modal dead center, an autoplaying video pinned to the corner and a prompt begging to send you push notifications.
I wrote about the state of news websites. Would love to hear your thoughts
The 49MB Web Page
A look at modern news websites. How programmatic ad-tech, huge payloads and hostile architecture destroyed the reading experience.
(thatshubham.com)
#enshittification #darkpattern #web #technology #socialmedia #indieweb #ux #privacy
@pheonix Good article! One thing I will say is that I don't like the thing where pages have header bars which disappear on scroll-down and reappear on scroll-up.
Often I'll scroll a page to put the start of the the paragraph I'm reading right at the top of the screen. But that's almost impossible to do if, instead of just making a small adjustment, the up/down arrow keys also summon/dismiss a giant header bar. Much prefer websites which keep it simple and leave the header at the top of the page, where I can find it if and when I want it.
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The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
When a news website forces you through three dismissive actions just to read a headline, they are burning your cognitive budget before delivering any value. You are greeted by a cookie banner taking up the bottom 30% of your screen, a "Subscribe!" modal dead center, an autoplaying video pinned to the corner and a prompt begging to send you push notifications.
I wrote about the state of news websites. Would love to hear your thoughts
The 49MB Web Page
A look at modern news websites. How programmatic ad-tech, huge payloads and hostile architecture destroyed the reading experience.
(thatshubham.com)
#enshittification #darkpattern #web #technology #socialmedia #indieweb #ux #privacy
-
The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.
When a news website forces you through three dismissive actions just to read a headline, they are burning your cognitive budget before delivering any value. You are greeted by a cookie banner taking up the bottom 30% of your screen, a "Subscribe!" modal dead center, an autoplaying video pinned to the corner and a prompt begging to send you push notifications.
I wrote about the state of news websites. Would love to hear your thoughts
The 49MB Web Page
A look at modern news websites. How programmatic ad-tech, huge payloads and hostile architecture destroyed the reading experience.
(thatshubham.com)
#enshittification #darkpattern #web #technology #socialmedia #indieweb #ux #privacy
I've been told this article has become required reading in the CS department of Grinnell College and was featured by the International News Media Association as well.
It is mind-boggling how many people, across nationalities and language-barriers have come out and mirrored their frustrations with the current state of online news outlets.
I wrote this from a quiet room, alone, trying to articulate something that had been bothering me for years. I didn't expect it to travel this far or be translated into this many conversations.
It reminded me that the most useful thing you can do is simply be precise about a problem other people haven't had the words for yet. That's what I want to keep doing. The web has more of these problems waiting to be documented clearly. I have a list of other things that need describing. Watch this space.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
