I love how this site rendered the full article but magically transformed itself to hide everything but the first paragraph, the words literally disappearing under my eyes. And then the rest of the page is "enjoy more great articles from Wired". Like, hello, I didn't even enjoy one!?
A dark pattern all too common these days. I hate the modern web.
> A dark pattern all too common these days. I hate the modern web.
This is a belief I strongly disagree with that has become pervasive on HN: "I don't like this thing so it is a dark pattern/is toxic, etc." People will, on the one hand, decry the current state of news media and bemoan how Google and/or Facebook have destroyed or perversely mutated it, while, on the other hand, decry the efforts of the news media to monetize (aka get paid) for their efforts.
There is no free lunch. Journalism isn't free. Labor isn't free. We certainly aren't entitled to the free use of the products of each other's labor.
There is no free lunch. Journalism isn't free. Labor isn't free. We certainly aren't entitled to the free use of the products of each other's labor.
Sure, but it's rude to present something and then take it away. Google used to downrank sites who did this, anyone remember how awful experts exchange was? If they want to have a paywall then they should have a paywall.
Exactly, this is a dark pattern because it uses up the visitor’s bandwidth before dropping a paywall in front.
On a similar note it’s using unnecessary power (quite possibly from a battery of limited capacity) rendering a paywall with an effect nobody wants to see, except probably the people who made it.
There’s an easy solution: HTTP response 402: payment required
HTTP 402 is like Hashcash[1] - greatly underrated and/or unknown, and yet extremely effective in solving its target problem.
In 402's case, if it was, say, legislated by the government, then the following would happen:
(1) Users wouldn't be bait-and-switch'ed by a paywall that revealed part of the content before appearing
(2) Companies would need to band together to implement a micropayments framework
(3) Lasseiz-faire maximalists wouldn't be able to complain because the only requirement would be that paywalls be signalled by an HTTP status code
The only potential downside is that companies might, instead of making a common micropayments API, instead just use Google, or even worse, not use any common platform and instead make consumers sign up for a new account for each site.
Lightning Service Authentication Tokens[1] (LSATs) provide a standard that’s usable today.
With a Lightning Network browser integration like Alby[2] you can access paywalled content behind a proxy like Aperture[3], and it’s a very smooth process already.