Hacker News Reader

Comment by grenoire | Hacker News Reader

Regarding advertising, the article states: "Rather than being seen as a tool to enable people Japanese companies often see the web as just another advertising platform to push their message across as loudly as possible. Websites ends up being about the maximal concentration of information into the smallest space akin to a pamphlet rather than an interactive tool."

I find this quite ironic, especially given how unusable most websites are due to third party advertising resources being loaded into them these days. HN users in particular will agree I bet, ad blocking seems prevalent here because of that exact reason.

I think Japanese websites are better in this sense because their ad technology is usually 'outdated' banner ads and internally served sponsorship content. They're luckily stuck in the era of static and freshly-baked server-side content.

View on HN

I agree with you but unfortunately these sites almost always have poor usability too.

Well, it's one single component of the problem, there are many other factors involved in bad UX. Resources wasted on advertising are unequivocally the hardest to justify out of them all.

Isn’t it the easiest to justify? As in, you justify putting ads on your site because you get money for it.

IMO, the Web could stand to be a little bit harder to use.

Why?

To filter out idiots and the lazy. 'Normies'.

Here is where I consider myself a segregationist. Give them their web: Facebook, YouTube, Google, et al. -- leave me out of normie net.

You needn't join in. You are free to segregate yourself.

Are they? You still are in same infrastructure and legal framework. Thats like saying you are free not visiting neighbouring apartments. Their "influence" (smoke, noise) is still leaking to your space. Same with web. Like facebook negatively affecting separated web forums.

You can find another infrastructure and legal framework like Project Gemini, and I'm sure other separatist protocols will pop up in the future.

Snobbism aside, I would gladly give up on some "usability" for a passive web (basically raw HTML or even Gopher or Gemini) and a separate active web (basically a proper virtual machine perhaps like Squeak/Pharo).

But as soon as you cut off ways to make the Web more "engaging", it makes it far less interesting for the ads market, so less contents. Even individual content producers (e.g. Youtubers, Twitchers) look for monetization these days.

> and a separate active web (basically a proper virtual machine perhaps like Squeak/Pharo).

Something like WebAssembly, then?

AFAICT WebAssembly is in the continuum of HTML/CSS/JS, and is intended to "make things faster", so there is no reason to separate things that are essentially text and medias from things that are essentially programs.

In other words, WebAssembly won't cut the Gordian knot, in my opinion.

I bet this is related to Eternal September

I've, unrealistically wanted there to be "read only" access where someone would then apply to some organization demonstrating aptitude for write access.

I'm just joking but then again I'm really not

> I think Japanese websites are better

They are only better if you never use them.

The few Japanese websites I've used have been superior to their American equivalents. Kotobank is definitely a lot more pleasing to the eyes than Webster's.

Seems like every knock off search engine/content farm site.

? It's not a search engine. Did you not even get past the second page.

So you refute an argument based on a few exceptions ?

Every once in a while I browse the internet without an adblocker and I wonder how people can live like this.

This!!! I'd much, much rather have some obvious in thr face banner ad then the shit that passes for modern web these days. Less information does not mean more useable.

Does anyone know if all the GDPR type laws in EU and US are causing Japanese website makers to add consent forms on their websites?

That’s probably the worst usability problem with the current web, it used to be popups, now it’s constant in your face consent forms. Consent forms are really just legally enforced popups.

Probably US users don’t know how bad it is because the US sites only add them to requests originating in the EU.

I don't think that's the case, if only anecdotally, as I have seen a huge uptick in these consent modals in Canada.

Most of these sites needed or wanted them implemented on the cheap. Restricting it to EU customers would require extra work...

It’s surprising to me that sites which depend on users seeing their content to make money, would add something that blocks the user from seeing the site.

It makes no sense. If there isn’t a legal requirement, why would they risk impacting their ability to make money?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com