John Gruber: ‘Your Frustration Is the Product’

The Guardian screenshot Bose captured, where only 11 percent of the entire screen shows text from the article, is the equivalent of a broadcast TV channel that only showed 7 minutes of actual TV content per hour, devoting the other 53 minutes to paid commercials and promotions for other shows on the same channel. Almost no one would watch such a channel. But somehow this strategy is deemed sustainable for websites.

The vast majority of articles I read on the web are through RSS or Instapaper, so no/few ads. Dunno how non-nerds put up with this.

@jarrod The ratio of explicitly requested content (“follows”) to ads and “suggested content” is also abysmal, yet social media remains extremely popular. It’s absolutely stunning.

rscottjones.com/the-30-ta…

@rscottjones That’s a great point that I hadn’t even considered. And yet, even there, my personal browsing habits have veered away from the mainstream, i.e. Micro.blog. Though, I do spend a lot of time on Instagram, where I’m held hostage for work promotion.