I just forgot what I wanted to say!

It's something common today due to the Internet

[explorador]

Woke up with a great idea, but before opening a thread to discuss it decided to research a bit.

My search lead me to a set of web results where I was asked over and over if I wanted to accept cookies, half of the notifications didn't work and I was there trying to press some unresponsive buttons; after succeeding on some and giving up on others I was about to read, but then another message appeared covering the screen asking me to login using a Google account because... I don't know, so I tried clicking the X on the top right, it's annoying how in these modern days clicking on a simple X might not always work.

WAIT: cloudflare is making sure everything is ok before you continue...
WAIT: you must solve this captcha before continuing, now prove you are not a robot

Finally ended reading just 3 websites. I'm not sure if these are exactly the best results! but I got tired of browsing, clicking, etc., and my brain suddenly discriminated some other websites as low quality. Funny because I couldn't exactly read the content, but it's the bad user experience that gave me that vibe.

Now reading those 3 websites... one is complaining that I have an adblocker, this sucks. The second website is quite interesting, the third paragraph says how import... wait, now a pop up appears blocking the content saying that I must subscribe, ok I get it, information takes time, but IT TOOK ME SOME TIME TO GET HERE, and right now I'm feeling quite annoyed by the interruptions, you know what? I don't care if this site is high quality, I'm gone. Two sites left, disable my adblocker? no thanks: one site left. I really hate noticing the article has like 5 paragraphs but when I browse, suddenly 3 ads push and divide those 5 paragraphs, it reminds me of the old days of poorly constructed websites where everything would move as the page loads.

I'm about to give up... I'm moving to Facebook, perhaps I'll ask on a coding group about some info. Yikes... first thing I see is a "suggested for you" page, it's about memes, I hate that. Now that I'm here I'm going to click "I don't want to see this" and then block it, yes... what? another silly suggestion appears, and just like the previous one it has absolutely nothing to do with my personal interests. I will block it right away; wow, it's been 5 minutes and these things keep appearing, I'm moving on, wait... the page is loading weirdly, ah, it's my adblocker saving me: dynamic content is loaded and my adblocker deals with it right away, so cool! but still the page behaves a little weird.

I'm moving to Youtube, ok... turn off your adblocker, yikes. I won't! I hate this. What? ok, search results bring some related stuff, you know, to my idea. After trying to watch 4 videos all I get is "hi my name is whatever, welcome, today we are going to talk about whatever, please subscribe and like, make sure to enable notifi..." what? do you know how ZIP compression works? it compress repetitive patterns, I bet we could get RID of like 500 terabytes daily if we just blocked the repetitive "please subscribe", what a piece of garbage. Do you want a tip? DON'T TELL PEOPLE TO SUBSCRIBE, hey, I just got here, I don't even know if your content is useful or garbage, don't tell me to subscribe. Wait, what? words about your sponsor? no thanks, I'm outta here.

Wait... let's check the comments before leaving, ok yes, comments complain about the content, it's a confirmation that the video sucks. I'm gone. Do you know what I hate the most about Youtube? it's not the ads, it's not the unrelated ads... it's not the repetitive boring bits asking me to subscribe, well I do hate all of that, but what I hate the most it's the english videos (title, text in the thumbnail, description) and when playing someone says "hello friends welcome to my chanell, today takakakakakakaka" because somehow someone talking in hindi didn't bother to properly differentiate or identify the content. But there is something I hate the most: Youtube is filled with TONS of videos (thumbnails and descriptions) saying "this changes everything" / "What big companies don't what you to know" / "I researched this so you don't have to", "you won't be the same after watching this", I mean... seriously?

I'm tired, a bit irritated, just spent a great deal of time battling ads and terrible user experience content. I will read something on my phone to leave this behind for a bit. Yeah, let's do that, let's read a bit.

What? a notification? mmm Whatsapp says I have to update the app because it will stop working next week. Another notification appears, it's my photo application, suddenly says it's outdated and I MUST UPDATE NOW because... because I'm missing some new features? like what? I just point and shoot, then I review my pictures, that's it, I can do that since the WinCE time, I don't want no new features! specially face filters, no no no no. Ok, another app says I must update because of security reasons, do you mean all this time this app has been insecure? why I must update every now and then? I just want this to work, my Nokia brick was way better than this.

Ok, updated... now what? I must recharge, some battery is gone doing nothing.


I honestly forgot what I wanted to say here, or at least the specifics, it sounded like a good idea. Now I just remember bits of it, and the FEELING of having a very good idea is overwhelmed by this sensation of exhaustion, I'm tired, annoyed but mostly tired. I think this whole experience has affected my creation processes because by association it's tying bad user experience to every attempt to discuss a great idea. The web didn't suck this much in the past.

All I know right now is I'm hungry, must be due to all this work for nothing.

[Martin Potter]

Your exhaustion is palpable, any I sympathize. It bugs me too and who knows how bad it will get before it ends. But there might still be a few web sites that don't engage in any of those increasingly intrusive, bothersome, and annoying practices. My own site, for example, has a big notice at the bottom of every page that says :

Cookie Notification – Unlike most websites, this website does NOT use cookies. None whatsoever. See our statements on Privacy and on Policies.

And I don't have adverts, from Google or anyone else, or run Java, etc etc., or any of that other crap. But please don't visit my site out of curiosity, because your visit will screw up my visitor stats which are too small as it is, and are easily upset by any statistical noise.

Please pursue your observations and analysis of this source of your exhaustion, because probably most of us suffer just as you do. I know that I do, but you are more eloquent about that I am. Thanks.

[engine]

@explorador all so true, and I feel the same.
In my instance, i'm obsessive in rejecting cookies at every instance. It slows down browsing considerably, yet gives me some satisfaction in successfully hurdling the challenges set my marketers and minimises tracking.
I'm sure there's many here that do the same.

Most people I know, outside of our industry, just accept cookies to get the site. When I try to educate them about it they go, "aaaaah, really, i never knew", and they promptly continue to accept cookies.

Distractions from banners, ads, pop-ups, cookies, clutter around content, video, oh, and before you go pop-ups. No wonder i forget why i'm there.

I often liken all this and your experience, explorador, to attempting to reach the library at the end of the high street. However, on the way you have to get past the shops that put a-frame ads on the footpath to block the way. Not only that, they have several people outside the door asking me to enter the lair. Even after I reject their proposal to enter, they keep asking. Not only that, but the next store has, what appears to be the same person asking me again if I want to enter and buy their products and services that are of no interest. This activity continues as i pass each store. Dare i go into one of them to buy something! Oh, crikey, no, unless I really need to.
I then realise i've got some way to go to reach the library and to suffer more of this.
I realise I need to pay a visit for a natural break, but, wait, I need to pay a fee for the privilege. Oh well, i'd better pay. Oh, wait, I need an app which I don't have on my phone. After eventually installing the app, somebody approaches me and says, "now you've got the app, here's some other great things you might want to buy."

And so it goes on.

In real life we just would find it totally unacceptable for so much pestering.

[tangor]

@explorador ... please don't hold back. Tell us what you REALLY think! :)

Reality is things will likely get worse before they get better.

[explorador]

I'm glad others think similarly around the current state of the web. And don't get me started about Pinter...st, just like lots of people I hate seeing that website on search results, specially because one link leads to another, and another, without meaningful results within the chain of jumps.

What about calculators? for some reason Windows and Android devices need constant updates for... the... calculator!, and for some strange reason these apps also need Internet access, or supposedly running in the background is a feature. There was an interesting article a few years ago regarding torch apps... Android apps that only do one thing: turning the led torch of your cell phone on, but somehow need Internet access and each app weighted about 20, 30, 60 megabytes.

Well, ok, it's spyware, right? then what about Windows? for some reason you get notifications of constant updates for your calculator, or the webcam app, what about the clock? sorry but I'm actually laughing. Suddenly Windows clock needs constant updates, yeah, right.

[ronin]

I may be more optimistic than many about this, but I still have a sense that...

... a surveillance-free, decentralised, anonymous, impersonal, web3 based on protocols (not platforms) will gradually emerge in the 2020s...

... which will be the antidote to our present reality: the always-on, centralised, personalised, competitively attention-seeking, ad-filled, spyware-filled, platform-oriented Web 2.0 from the 2010s.

I very much doubt it was intentional, but Web 2.0 brought a lot of bad things with it:

a few gigantic centralised platforms on which millions of content-producers competitively scream over each other for an ever-smaller piece of the pie

relentlessly attention-seeking algorithms (on the same platforms) which detrimentally influence people's perspectives and lead to adverse social phenomena in the real world

constantly being surveilled / tracked / nagged

the swamping of publications which exercise professional editorial oversight by platforms which exercise little to none

the demise of any usefulness that email once had

I suspect that more and more people will decide they want to move on from that.

I am optimistic that, increasingly, alternative visions of the web will arrive which mean that we can leave the 2010s misanthropic web behind us.

[Martin Potter]

@ronin, I sure hope that you are right about Web 3, though I suspect that it will take a lot of push from both ordinary people and people like us to make it happen. But it's ironic that it is the ordinary people who are more influential in this than we are, simply because their group is larger and spends more money than ours does. It always seems to come down to $$$ rather than logic or principle.

[blend27]

@ronin, re: adverse social phenomena in the real world....

I was getting ready to take my Mother for her scheduled Chemo Therapy session. I don't do this a lot, live kind of far away. But there I was that day, visiting.

For a reason that I could not understand, Mama was asking if I had both of power banks charged and ready to go. One was wireless(aha) and the second one had more juice to spit out.

It was about 10 minutes after I was left alone in a hospital lobby, waiting, mentioning in my mind a presence of a vo·lup·tu·ous young lady accompanied what looked like here Gran-Daddy - glued to a smart phone screen and doing left thumb gymnastics in a corner of the open space I was in, I realized why were 'those' questions raised: I had my Mamas purse(well a large one) which started beeping and mip-mip-p'ing and buzzing. Notifications(grrr...) So I turned my attention to it.

An iPad hooked into one power bank, an iPhone into the other. 'Things' were looking Super-Charged at that point, at 100%! I unplugged them both. Finished reading an article on APNEWS and....

Ten minutes later...

Sh..t got real. Both devices are on ALERT now(BP & MMP). The lady sitting next to me actually started giving me a look of '‘I should have staired the stairs to the first floor first'.

So I crack the Purse open to rescue my surrounding Human Kind'z from... An Old School library shhhhhhh-quet moment, if one will... Uncomfortable right? Pad and a phone + I at 70%. Pad had 74 notifications, Phone had 120+. In Ten minutes only.

Being an oldest and most IT experienced child in a family a glance was a must at gadgets, whasss-up here and here too.

Rebates/discounts/pings from - every single chain store I knew, facebook, whatsapp, and God that was not even Christmas or Hanukah yet.

And I mean it: These 2 devises were hooked in to Web, and apparently my Mama, + Power banks.

We got home and I spent about 2 hours trying to devour into IOS, cleansing things up. Well. next were my other Family Member's Gadgets(many).

...but 10+minutes and over 30% of almost new IThings battery life... I am sure the cost of those would exceed 2500 bucks, and for what?

And that was me. The hero. The Saving Battery Life Pro! Uninstalling sh..t.....

_{p.s.#1 BP is 'beeping' , MMP is 'mip-mip-p'ing' and sh..t is 'shhhhhhh-quet' and REAL now days.
p.s.#2: WebmasterWorld Does not work without ajax.googleapis.com}

[thecoalman]

I feel your pain Blend. I have given up on my Mothers phone, she is always complaining there is something wrong with it. I keep trying to explain to her when something pops up asking if you want to install a virus the answer is no. My brother and I have both cleaned it up numerous times and are at the point we are going to force her to get a basic flip phone, give her a tablet to destroy. It's a very big concern she is going to end up with something stealing bank information etc.

[blend27]

@thecoalman - Thank You.

... stealing bank information etc.

Ha, You don't say... We just went thru that... Plus recurring charges from merchants when zdupid stuff was purchased as far as 4-5 years ago... like candles showed up for no particular reason, I tracked it to a purchase/domain 4 years ago - just a refill... Taking into consideration that I am extremely allergic to Fire....grrrr.... and they wanted me to pay for return shipping. One Star Rating on G, Amazon and BBB to handle all of that.

And how can I say no to 3 boxes(double packed) of Kirkland Protein Bars and a 2-2Gallon jugs of Windex(2=Two=1+1x2 << see what I did here). Courtesy of storing my shipping address when She sent me Gifts prior, and then, again, had chosen a wrong shipping Address from her account at Costco and Amazon.

I am a Good Child.

@engine
....This activity continues as i pass each store. Dare i go into one of them to buy something! Oh, crikey, no, unless I really need to....

So much easier in USA these days. All those Crikey's are smoking weed affront the same stores they used to shout out at near by. Life is much smoother(or shmoozer)..

[explorador]

blend27: yes, the batteries, charge, percentage going down. This repeats all over again: an older person tries to watch something on youtube, it's slow, very slow, the battery goes down faster than it should, for some reason (randomly) the video jumped to 1080. Oh, it's something vital, no, it's some random video. Explaining to older people how to set the quality to 360 or 480 works sometimes, but it might jump to 720@60fps sometimes for no reason at all, it happens to me too (but not as often as in recent times).

thecoalman: I have given up on my Mothers phone, she is always complaining there is something wrong with it.

yeah, sad situation, the phone is always getting discharged, slow, something appears on the screen, updates? again, it's not like the old phones you could use until they caught fire without any interruption, today? there is always something to update, some setting to fix.

Oh, your aunt needs to change something on the phone, it's Android, you are not there, so she asks some random person because they are running Android, wait... the icons look different, this is the settings button, right? ok, wait, the settings page looks different, where should I change the privacy preferences? let's ask your cousin, oh, it's Android but it also looks different, wait, every Android phone looks different? someone just updated the OS version and now things are on diff places.

I guess iPhones are different, not different: BETTER!, yes, give someone older an iPhone, just be patient when they get locked out because they entered the wrong pin, then, see their faces when Apple or a technician explains to them how to set their iPhone properly, turns out your uncle had an Android phone with just a swipe to unlock, but now he is being informed about the passwords, iCloud, security, did you know anyone can steal your data? you must set up multiple security features on, now your uncle is surprised about the dangers of having an iphone, Android? it was better! he didn't need all those layers, but wait!, he just realized he was exposed to hacking, because Android weak, Iphone stronger, right?

[blend27]

--- just be patient when they get locked out because they entered the wrong pin---

Me to my Sibling over the weekend, early morning: It was a very long day yesterday(Big Event), would you like me to make you a cup of tea ....
Sibling: Sure, I will take some Green tea.

So I make it to a Kitchen... Nephew is there.

ME to Nephew: Yo, where is the kettle?
Nephew: What is that?
Me: to make tea, you know...
Nephew: I don't drink tea..
Me: So how do I boil the water then? (me thinking of an MFA Article linked to from WebmasterWorld on "How To Boil Water" pops into my head, for real).
Nephew: Oh yea, it is that thing there, just plug IT in..
Me: looking at the kitchen counter, there is an extra large plastic cup, with a charging cord of USB Type A hooked into it at the base, which is connected into an iPhone Charger, and into a wall outlet..

That was a 1080K moment in my real life.

[blend27]

Oh My!,

"LazyBoy" recliner type has a USB port for recharging things at a very slow speed, 1.2.

One of those ports has a thingy plugin into it(just a bit of BT thingy) that transmits Location based on BlueTooth being enabled.

This is better than a Garden every Spring Sprint.

Did the Boy Move?, Was it a lazy move or a spring you know where? what happened(yellow, brown, was it a cat with a tag that was enabled...)?

I mean, Who programs for that, Lazy Now DAys? or....

[thecoalman]

Me: looking at the kitchen counter, there is an extra large plastic cup, with a charging cord of USB Type A hooked into it at the base, which is connected

I just did some rough calculations. Assuming 24 oz cup and this is a magical cup that loses no heat it would only take you 2 days to boil water.

[lucy24]

The last time I bought a bicycle light I got a rechargeable one ... USB. Why? Why? (It came with a cord, but not a charger. I plug it into my oldest iPad charger, as that's the one I use least often.) They also make USB-rechargeable bicycle pumps, though I declined to buy one. I ask again: Why?

[thecoalman]

Lights using rechargeable batteries make sense, I have a Dewalt tool kit and the flashlight is the most used item. Not sure how long it would last on fully charged batteries but with the two batteries I have presumably days. I know I have left it on for hours without much depletion of the battery. The only trouble is if the power is out you can't just reach in the drawer for new batteries if they are dead.

A bike pump would fall into the unnecessary use of technology category. If there is one thing I hate it is when technology is used in place of simple mechanical devices that just work.

[tangor]

While I do have a mechanical bicycle pump, I rely on the AC/DC version for time (and back) reasons.

My little multi-bit USB screwdriver saves a lot of potential tunnel carpel problems.

Only worry is when the POWER goes out is how to recharge!

[blend27]

... it would only take you 2 days to boil water ...

To make it even more fun, 2 years or so ago after an arguments between children broke out about a USB Charger and USB charging cables, one of the smart ones(adult) decided to get a an extra good deal on a pack of 5 USB charges and pack of 10 iPhone charging cables at the best price possible in a local convenience store.

While we were driving somewhere The phone call came in about the argument, so the man in charge stopped, went into a store and got a bunch on Big Sale! All white, All looking like an an iPhone charger and cable, 35 buks in total. My comment was that these are knock-offs and would not work well: I don't care as long as they are not fighting.... I've heard that same purchase was made couple of month later, at the same place, so they are all over the place.

..and there u go...

When I visit, I bring my own charger, wrapped in red masking tape. Cable is USB-C! DIRE Warning was issued: DON'T USE RED charger, it will FRY you device!

I do remember that about decade ago it was somewhat popular to gift attending(BDay) children a USB stick. Started with 500MB. Being it a large extended family and friends and every single time, there are dozens unused ones laying around, still.

It is a House Joke now: what, you want a 2 Terabyte Dive now?

-- Only worry is when the POWER goes out is how to recharge! --

Power Banks are a Thing now... or get a $85,000-ish supped up Ford F-150 that has Lightning Power Generator built in.

[not2easy]

I got solar chargers for my power banks - at least 5 years ago. It takes all day in direct sun to charge but keeps a phone charged and can power a fan and/or LED lamp or whatever can run via USB.

[lucy24]

The drawback to a rechargeable light is that it soon becomes useless just when you need it most, i.e. when the power goes out. Obviously not an issue with a bicycle light, because I'm not going anywhere if the streets are pitch dark.

It's the gratuitous USB that got me. I mean, it's not like I have a USB port built into my neck and can just plug anything in at any time. The bicycle pump (compressed air, I guess, don’t know how it works but it’s a godsend, and lives permanently in my backpack along with other necessities like shopping bags) can jolly well plug into a power strip like everything else.

[thecoalman]

The drawback to a rechargeable light is that it soon becomes useless just when you need it most,

I mentioned this previously. The light I have uses batteries made for power tools. They list it as working for up to 11 to 25 hours, I'm guessing the 25 hours is with the 3 Amp hour batteries I have and I have two of them. The light usually comes in kits where you are getting four other tools with it and the batteries. Purchased by itself with two batteries it's probably going to be over $100 so not really practical just for the light.

Tool manufacturers are making a lot of products the average person might use because they know lot of them already have the battery which is typically the expensive part.

[tangor]

Chuckles ... apparently we all forgot what we wanted to say starting from OP to batteries and USB...

:)

I love topic drift!

[lucy24]

Tool manufacturers are making a lot of products the average person might use because ...

If it gives the average person an excuse to wander around the Power Tools aisle of the hardware store, I’m there.

[blend27]

--drift?--

FOO!

[Un]compressed! :)

@Lucy -- Power Tools aisle--

That is right next to Screws, Nuts and Bolts section and it is covered by ReGexp rules if one wants to 'return' something using Positive and Negative Lookahead lookups at a later date..

[brotherhood of LAN]

I guess I'm getting old (42), a kid to you lot and I absolutely hate having to navigate the web on my phone nowadays.

There's a stock market site that I check that burdens you with a long hanging video that never seems to play that takes up a quarter of the screen, and Google ads takes up the bottom quarter.

I also use Amazon Prime and I'm in this surreal situation where I cannot rewind of fast forward. I can't query Netflix for stuff I've never seen but pay for.

Beyond the typical cat/mouse stuff with SEO, the whole web experience has really taken a downturn IMO. We're basically beholden to big tech and their daft patterns of behaviour and there's not much room for disagreement.

This place of all places should be a bastion for a counter argument and long may it continue.

At some point the up coming generation are going to be presented some nth derived AI slop and ask what the hell is going on, at least hopefully they do!

[tangor]

at least hopefully they do!

Nah! By that time the sheeple will have been fully trained to accept whatever is on the screen...

Everything is filtered these days ... front end, back end, what's on display.

I miss the Wild West Web.

Sigh.

[thecoalman]

I'm with you Tangor. I was visiting a forum recently I haven't been on in a while. I was going over some of the topics and had to laugh.

2000's
Poster: What is good application to do XYZ?
Me: Try ABC but it uses a command line.
Poster: Ooh cool that looks interesting, I'll try it out. Thanks for the pointer.


Today:
Poster: What is good application to do XYZ?
Me: Try ABC but it uses a command line.
Poster: How do use this? I don't see a button to click that magically makes everything work. Despite the 1 million tutorials online I need you to give me step by step guidance how to install it, how to get the command prompt and what commands to issue. When you are done doing that please wipe my ass.

[explorador]

Turns out... I didn't know there is a term for what's being described on this thread, it's called: ensh*ttification (double t), it's described in detail on Wikipedia

Someone even made a website do explain in practical terms how the web is experienced today, I know direct links are not allowed, in case you want to see it because it may be useful for you (to explain these concepts to clients) here it is: search for "how I experience web today".