The current state of the web assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@pheonix Something else I hadn't considered that helps explain why these apps get made, perhaps even initially in good faith, is that many mobile users are reluctant to use web browsers. Their app store is the first place they look, rather than a web search engine. A publisher that doesn't want to miss those readers will therefore want to show up in the app store.

And then the "benefits" of a more publisher-controlled experience would make them want to direct their web users to the app too.

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

@jackyan I think that's a very noble strategy and it shows that you, as a publisher are also mindful about how readers experience the final product. Thanks for reading!

[the_bogolepov@mastodon.art]

@pheonix it sometimes feels to me as if the whole world is shouting at me. thank you for your voice!

[log@mastodon.sdf.org]

@pheonix I use a script blocker. News sites are often the worst offenders when it comes to presenting a completely unusable document on first page load, and 30+ domains other than the one serving the base document that want to run scripts. This is especially grievous if the content is a video clip from a broadcast television station. You have to guess which panel of the adware-newsware quilt operates the content you wanted, and which are adware and trackers. Enshittified web.

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

@log IKR. Such is the state of web these days..

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

@arrrg Holy smokes! Needs to be in some kind of hall of fame with those numbers

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

@the_bogolepov thank you!!

[x0@dragonscave.space]

@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.

[x0@dragonscave.space]

@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.

[kkarhan@infosec.space]

@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@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!

[kkarhan@infosec.space]

@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...

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

@kkarhan that video ought to come with a TW cause wow, we're moving in that direction pretty fast.

[kkarhan@infosec.space]

@pheonix exactly!

[forst@mastodon.social]

@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)

[rachelplusplus@tech.lgbt]

@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.

[peterfr@mastodon.art]

@pheonix old but gold

"The Website Obesity Crisis"

The Website Obesity Crisis

(idlewords.com)

[pheonix@hachyderm.io]

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.