i’m not sure if what seems to be a poignant interactive demonstration of internet UX enshitification is shallow/incomplete or depends on javascript/trackers that my browser is blocking. it’s ironic either way
But seriously, my favorite are online stores for products, but you can’t buy their product because they have pop-up ads for other products that interfere with their websites you can’t actually view or buy their fucking product.
It’s like, insane. And probably why Amazon still exists.
My former co-worker was daily driving his browser without any extensions and didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was watching him work one day and he was literally fighting a battle against the unholy pop-ups just tryna download some free fonts. What could’ve been done in 2 clicks took him minutes to do trying to close all the ads and tabs kept opening, videos kept playing. It was painful just to watch.
I don’t have adblock on my work computer. I don’t want it interfering with webdev and I’ve found it to do so in the past. But it’s interesting, the dichotomy between sites I use as development resources vs the rest of the web. My phone and home computer are unbearable without adblock, but on my work computer, the ads are hardly noticeable really.
Its ultimately based on the sites you frequent at work vs home. The sites i read stuff at work tend to be less in your face with ads,.so you know its there but theyre less distracting.
I remember some video. It was a joke about IT remoting in to fix a computer. The icons on the desktop were shaped like a dick. Then it guy took a screenshot and was like I’m definitely sending this to HR as he sorted them alphabetically. Then the other dude was like “no put it back, infant find anything!” And the line that sticks with me, the IT guy says “there’s no sort by dick”.
In a world where people would spin up new websites just to piss off a billionaire, I have faith in humanity to build taller ladders for any walls the greedy corporations build.
in the 90s there was no technology to have an overlay of an ad following you while you scroll and when you close it a new one appears more aggressively. Or to let you start reading an article and then suddenly appear in your face not allowing you to continue. Yes, there was the worse situation that they would open a whole new window, but browsers started restricting it quite early
Well at least in the early 2000s we certainly had the cascading cavalcade of pop-up windows that you couldn’t get rid of, I do remember that. Maybe not in the '90s though because it probably would have caused your computer to meltdown. Heh
I think it has gotten worse in that now we have higher bandwidth, faster computers, and more advanced web standards so ads can be an even higher level annoying. If we had the same type of ads back in the 90s that we have today, they would never load and if they tried to they would bring your computer to its knees.
In Firefox, on Linux, behind a VPN and firewall with ad blocker, I run 5 different privacy/ad blocking extensions. I keep hearing about adds, but not seeing them.
Supposedly Youtube now is getting more agressive on this? I wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen a Youtube notice about it yet.
But really, I dream of the day youtube is replaced by something else. Fracture Youtube into 1,000 pieces and scatter it into the wind.
Bonzy Buddy… Anyone? I found it so often at customer computers. When they saw me trying to uninstall it, they got quite angry, because they REALLY LIKED that funny monkey.
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