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Comment by makecheck | Hacker News Reader

Publishers should approach everything from the point of view of a person on the street: if it wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, WHY is it acceptable online!?

The equivalent of a pop-up newsletter modal is somebody on the street PULLING you aside, standing directly in front of you and preventing you from going any further until you answer their question. All without bothering to observe what you were doing beforehand. Your choice then is to step back the way you came to avoid the creepy sidewalk-blocking people. Ridiculous, creepy and unacceptable in real life but essentially exactly how web sites treat their visitors.

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> Why is it acceptable online?

I agree with you, it's not acceptable (and that is an excellent analogy). Aren't content consumers also to blame here as well though? Viewers put up with it anyway. I'm surprised by top google search results that bring up click-bait junk that requires waiting for a page-full of ads to load and then requires that you click through 10 more pages before you even get to all the information you needed. I think this is an indication that the majority of people are willing to put up with it because otherwise those sites would have a high bounce-back rates and wouldn't have ranked so high.

Edit: I actually read the article and the author makes this point better than I could:

> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave. And we need to make good on that promise. By closing the browser tab, we can let the bounce rate demand what we as users cannot.

You mean like a bouncer checking IDs at the bar? If I don't want to give my ID to a stranger, then I just don't visit that bar, or find one with more lax security..

Those are different situations, bars have a legal obligation to prevent people under 21 from entering or they have to ID everyone buying alcohol.

Yes, but some are obnoxious and card everyone, others card only people who look like teenagers. Some have armed security that pats you down, other's have no guards or bouncers.

I'd personally rather spend my free time at a business that doesn't harass me, so when it's up to me I go to more chill bars.

My point being, this behaviour happens in real life too... and some people would rather go to bars that have high-security, dot their Is and cross their Ts. But ultimately the choice is up to both the business and consumer, it doesn't have anything to do with being acceptable or not.

I don't think those have much in common. You know the bouncer just wants to see your ID and won't bother you after that. They're not trying to push you into signing up for an annoying newsletter you don't care about or to buy something you don't want.

Also, in many states, just looking like or actually being over 21 isn't good enough. The liquor license people require that every person in the bar or drinking be able to prove with a valid ID that they're over 21, no matter how old they look or actually are. They're not checking that you're over 21; they're checking that you have a valid ID on you that proves you're over 21, because they get in trouble if you don't.

I don't think the street analogy is accurate; it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.

> it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.

Which is exactly what many stores do, except on the way out (at the register.) They also tend to get pretty annoyed at you when you say "no thanks" to providing a number.

Is that a USA thing? I've never seen such behavior in my life.

It was a thing at Radio Shack while they were in their death throes. Then they made a big deal about not doing that anymore.

> I've never seen such behavior in my life.

Which behavior, the asking for phone numbers or the getting annoyed?

Many major chains in the US have some sort of "loyalty" program that requires a phone number, email address, or both.

As for the getting annoyed, I've gotten countless eyerolls and a few snide comments when I've politely declined to give a phone number.

I haven't had store employees get annoyed when I say no in years. I say "can I just skip that?" and it's always "sure no problem."

Years ago I remember it being much worse (especially at Radio Shack!). Employees would have to do stuff like enter a fake phone number because the system often didn't have any bypass mechanism etc, so I can understand their annoyance. I recall aborting one sale out of principle when neither of us would budge. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the playbook the store clerk was supposed to be following but oh well!

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