I happened to click a link that took me to the associated twitter X account for something I was interested in and was greeted by not one, not two, but four modern day web popups.
I know it’s nothing new. I’ve got a couple of firefox plugins that are usually quite good at hiding this sort of nonsense, but I guess they failed me today (or, I shudder to think, there were even more that were blocked, and this is what got through)
What’s the worst new/not-signed-in user experience you’ve encountered recently?
I actually prefer a mostly text web. If the trade off for ditching JavaScript is not getting hovering pop ups, I’m fine with that. I think that while JavaScript can help with usability, it’s main use right now is being a pain in the ass. Images and video are useful, don’t get me wrong, and that will always be the most popular “use” of the internet, but most of the time I just want to go on the Internet and read cool shit without fifty different corporations trying to fuck me over with the promise of “enhanced usability”. Like a link has to have some floating bullshit for me to click it. Absolute madness.
But lack of ability does not prevent any of that. Entrepreneurs who want to monetize stuff will find a way to spam and game the system.
As someone whos responsible for docs and public facing material I’d never push text only content these days. There’s just way too much UX value left out with this limitation. Sometimes more is more.
Additionally I’d argue that people who only want text are have advantage in the current system as you can strip and reformat everything on the front end and nobody will ever know or bully you into accepting their system. Just like nobody cared about ad blockers before they were widely adopted.