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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

These are still Substack-powered blogs, just using custom domains for branding.

Substack is edging closer to Medium-like behaviors ever so gradually.

I usually don't complain about these and maybe it's just me but something in the wording or how it appears on the new one left me with a strong desire to leave the sites. I've never read any posts from any of these authors of course I wouldn't sign up before I read at least one of their posts.

Between these and GDRP cookie crap plus all the different kinds of ads these days, the internet is the least usable it's ever been. Even with AdGuard Home DNS servers, UBlock Origin, and aggressive blocklists, it's still not great.

I’ve said recently in despair: the internet used to not suck but by god it does now.

Yeah, it's definitely being A/B tested into some sort of horrifying local maximum (or minimum, really). Eventually it'll just be pop-ups all the way down.

A couple years ago, I changed my uBlock Origin settings to disable JS by default on every site. I only re-enable JS when necessary on a per-site basis.

I find myself having to do it a little more often these days, but it's still made everyday web surfing so much more pleasant — and secure, too.

When I get these popovers, I assume the publisher thinks I should be doing something other than read the article. I take their advice and move on to something else.

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