Author Topic: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?  (Read 4699 times)

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #25 on: 24 November, 2021, 09:13:08 pm »
If I can add a few others in the top five:

- The background music on drone videos.  It is universally terrible.
- Spam e-mail from the GOP.
- The greedy thieves who set up CDDB and FreeDB, then sold everyone else's work and got mega-rich.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #26 on: 24 November, 2021, 09:47:32 pm »
Actually, it's this: Nigel fucking fuckface "Fame and Fortune" "isn't everything going up and going up fast" fucking arsehole lying fucker Farage.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #27 on: 24 November, 2021, 09:57:38 pm »
I pay for Youtube Premium, because I'm a weirdo.

I don't find the ads on Youtube too bad in general; on the PC at least you can skip ads after a few seconds.
And as has been said, free content has to be paid for somehow.

But some of the videos themselves...
My God.

Take 20 mins to say what could be said in 2.
They could *really* do with some serious editing.
Oh, and how-to videos where the actual critical parts of the work is out of camera shot, out of focus, observed from a useless angle or obscured by hands etc.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #28 on: 24 November, 2021, 10:06:37 pm »
NAT, which is evil.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #29 on: 24 November, 2021, 10:11:08 pm »
But some of the videos themselves...
My God.

Take 20 mins to say what could be said in 2.
They could *really* do with some serious editing.
Oh, and how-to videos where the actual critical parts of the work is out of camera shot, out of focus, observed from a useless angle or obscured by hands etc.

I don't mind this sort of thing when I'm watching a video for entertainment, as long as the production values aren't too awful (I have a low tolerance for bad sound).

But when "How to access the admin interface on a Route-o-Matic 5000" is a 10 minute potatovision video rather than a 500 word article with 4 screenshots, I do tend to lose my patience.

Mrs Pingu

  • Who ate all the pies? Me
    • Twitter
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #30 on: 24 November, 2021, 10:46:37 pm »
Yes that. Most instruction videos are too bloody long. I'm not watching this because I like the sound of your voice, I just want to fix something and move on.
Anything where they want you to watch a video that you could glean the same information by reading in a third of the time.

What's potatovision?
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.


Karla

  • car(e) free
    • Lost Byway - around the world by bike
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #32 on: 24 November, 2021, 11:50:09 pm »
Most instructional videos shouldn't be videos at all, the creators just want to use YouTube, and don't know how to write. 

Bring back text.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #33 on: 25 November, 2021, 12:14:42 am »
I pay for Youtube Premium, because I'm a weirdo.

To be fair to adverts, without them we'd have to pay for stuff or sell our souls. OK, you get to sell your soul and get adverts, but you'll feel better in your post-partum consumer bliss. Generally, the rule holds that you get what you don't pay for.

What gets me is the local newspaper sites have all decided to have an advert between every paragraph. And a sidebar full of ads. And random paragraphs that look like the article but are also ads. And popovers and autoplays. And scrolljacking and interstitials.

Presumably they've all done the experimentation and found that making their articles literally unreadable is the option that brings in the most revenue. It's almost as if it's all bots and fraud, because no one can read the bloody things.

This ^^^^.  With the bonus of finally blanking the page altogether because the sheer volume of shitvertising overwhelms the tiny branez of browsers on fondleslabs.  Dear developers: test your fucking site on dimwitted mobile devices as well as mega-power Babbage-Engines.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #34 on: 25 November, 2021, 12:18:32 am »
I assume the typical use-case for local newspaper websites (as distinct from the likes of the BBC or the grauniad[1], where you're likely to land on the home page and navigate to interesting-looking articles) is following a link your friend has posted on social media, where you'll tolerate a higher level of shittery in order to find out what said friend is referring to.


[1] But not The Bile Duct, which seems to be playing the local newspaper game nationally.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #35 on: 25 November, 2021, 07:58:19 am »
The Newsquest sites had a paywall for a while but it seems to have gone.  I guess readership fell to single digits.  The content is usually wafer-thin (the Swindon Advertiser is now based in Oxford) so I just read it for the comments, which are occasionally hilarious
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #36 on: 25 November, 2021, 08:27:20 am »
Any advert with NF in it.

Gambling

People who say 'Do your research', which actually means "I am an uneducated moron who has watched conspiracy theory videos on Youtube and think that I belong to a secret group of people who know about the lizard people.".
(This includes the idiots who spread stupid conspiracies via whatsapp etc. People have died because of this idiocy.)
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #37 on: 25 November, 2021, 09:18:10 am »
Hmmm, I have been known to reply to posts suggesting as such that they do as they suggest others do: some research.

ian

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #38 on: 25 November, 2021, 10:02:03 am »
Those local 'news' platforms are pretty much advertising, they just rebrand something some poorly paid intern has lifted from social media or inbox, do a bit of SEO and re-media, and wait for the clicks because clicks make revenue.

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #40 on: 25 November, 2021, 11:07:16 am »
Hmmm, I have been known to reply to posts suggesting as such that they do as they suggest others do: some research.

There was one ignorant peasant, who probably thought of himself as a sparklingly witty conservative agent provocateur but whom everyone else considered to be a tedious far-right troll, who used regularly to pop up on Another Angry Voice's Farcebok page and, when challenged to provide evidence for his mostly ludicrous claims, told people to JFGI.  Then he failed to follow his own advice and blithely informed us that the Daily Heil was “owned by the Mirror”.

We didn’t let him forget that one in a hurry :demon:
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #41 on: 25 November, 2021, 12:22:15 pm »
What's potatovision?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/recorded-with-a-potato

I thought it was going to be some sort of mash-up.
I thought it would be a highly ineffectual variation on reflectoporn.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #42 on: 25 November, 2021, 02:09:04 pm »
I pay for Youtube Premium, because I'm a weirdo.

To be fair to adverts, without them we'd have to pay for stuff or sell our souls. OK, you get to sell your soul and get adverts, but you'll feel better in your post-partum consumer bliss. Generally, the rule holds that you get what you don't pay for.

What gets me is the local newspaper sites have all decided to have an advert between every paragraph. And a sidebar full of ads. And random paragraphs that look like the article but are also ads. And popovers and autoplays. And scrolljacking and interstitials.

Presumably they've all done the experimentation and found that making their articles literally unreadable is the option that brings in the most revenue. It's almost as if it's all bots and fraud, because no one can read the bloody things.

This ^^^^.  With the bonus of finally blanking the page altogether because the sheer volume of shitvertising overwhelms the tiny branez of browsers on fondleslabs.  Dear developers: test your fucking site on dimwitted mobile devices as well as mega-power Babbage-Engines.

Further to the above, web developing bonobos* should also note: don't assume that everyone's got the same zillion bits/second fibre optic-to-the-house/company fat pipe connection as you.
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #43 on: 25 November, 2021, 04:22:28 pm »
Further to the above, web developing bonobos* should also note: don't assume that everyone's got the same zillion bits/second fibre optic-to-the-house/company fat pipe connection as you.

Steady on, next thing you'll be telling them that not everyone is reading on a high-end Apple display in an appropriately lit room...

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #44 on: 25 November, 2021, 05:05:33 pm »
Menus where the browser has to be full screen to see all the menu items.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #45 on: 25 November, 2021, 05:08:07 pm »
...and on a tablet the menu items are 2mm high and spaced at three per average fingertip.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #46 on: 25 November, 2021, 05:09:06 pm »
Further to the above, web developing bonobos* should also note: don't assume that everyone's got the same zillion bits/second fibre optic-to-the-house/company fat pipe connection as you.

Steady on, next thing you'll be telling them that not everyone is reading on a high-end Apple display in an appropriately lit room...

Widescreen, of course.  ;D
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #47 on: 25 November, 2021, 05:55:59 pm »
Websites that are un-responsive the other way are just as bad.
Where they assume everyone is using a tiny phone screen.

Giant buttons and text, menus off the side, need for lots of scrolling when I have a proper big screen with plenty real-estate to display it on one screen.

Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #48 on: 25 November, 2021, 06:20:22 pm »
That 99% of email is spam because it’s so easy and low cost to do it.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: What's the single worst thing about the Internet?
« Reply #49 on: 25 November, 2021, 06:25:21 pm »
I think I've got spam mostly under control.
The remaining spam I have is semi-legit, in that it comes from vendors I actually use.

But a couple of days ago I did add a new Rule on the mailserver which sends anything containing 'Black Friday' in the subject directly to the Trash folder.