The internet these days is rubbish

Ooh, that looks like it might be interesting, I'll click on that link then and read the article.

- popup: do I consent to cookies on this site in the same way I have consented to cookies on all the other sites? Yes, yes I do. Can't they have the browser collect my preferences on that so every website knows without obscuring the window and waiting for me to scroll down and hit "agree"?

- adblock: I have it for a reason; text ads are all very well but constantly popping up ads/starting videos/playing sound/flashing things at me makes it seriously hard to actually read the article. So no, I'm not turning it off for you; I'll just not read your article instead. Sites I like, like the wroth, I whitelist but there aren't many. I don't mind text or even image ads it's the flashing/moving/sound/popup thing which boils my piss (and makes it literally impossible for someone like my Mum to do anything)

- Notifications. No I don't want to be notified when you add a new article/correct a typo/take a s**t. Just like every other site. So f**k off with that already. Again should be configurable at the browser level.

- Newsletter. No I don't want your newsletter and something else that should be configurable at the browser level. I get too many emails already.

By the time I've waded through all of those things I've probably forgotten why I clicked on your link in the first place and quite often have simply navigated away. Even when I haven't it usually takes far less time to actually read the article than deal with all of your annoyances; so I certainly won't be back.

Yes we all need to earn a living and yes quality content costs and ads are the price of that and I honestly don't mind seeing a few; sites like wotb I even make sure I click through from time to time so Ben gets paid, and I pay subscriptions to a few sites which have content I need for work or like to read. But so many sites have so much associated kerfuffle I surely can't be the only person who just gets put off by it all. On the PC it's one (bloody annoying) thing but on the phone I literally don't bother clicking off anywhere I don't already know these days.

#grumpyoldman

Posted By: Old Man on April 14th 2021 at 10:29:36

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