Click to read more STUPIDITY

[MrMobodies]

I noticed a trend starting from last year and on some forums running Invision or so and I can't remember the names where I had to click underneath every message to see the end where it fades it out and it was burden but I found when I switched off javascript I can see everything at the ends.

Then I noticed Trustpilot today doing it and I was missing reviews as I can't always see "read more" especially when I am scrolling. I have to click "read more" so what's the point in scrolling? There might some link from a search engine to some information on a page somewhere that I might being trying to find and then once the page has loaded using the finder in the browser to the find it and read the rest but with many hidden like that with a bunch of other results I might not be able to find it easily or at all. I am not sure how it will behave with cached pages.



Now I noticed Youtube are also doing it now



I ask myself what's the point searching for things when they can be hidden from the search results like that?

Why can't they leave it alone like before.

For me I find it crippling my viewing of the search results, it's a burden when I have stop scrolling just to expand comments and I think it is very stupid but please correct me why you think it maybe a good idea.

Also I didn't notice this before just type "shining" not "the shining movie" and it will add the movie to buy or sent not somewhere randomly down the search results but at the top of everything else and it seems to do for other movies too. Seeing it associated for horror stuff  I'd thought type "amytivvle" deliberately spelt wrong and it still brings up a suggestion to the movie that appears at the top.

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Very disappointed to what the search is becoming.

What do you think?

[SiliconWizard]

I suppose this is mainly done to save bandwidth in the end.
I agree this can be pretty annoying though.

As to "ads" being forced upon you, well yeah it bites. But we all know free access to online resources is never free. Of course they'll add them on top of everything. That's the only way of ensuring you're going to see them whether you want to or not (and thus, get more money from announcers, as the priviledged "on top" locations are a lot more expensive.)

[MrMobodies]

So they are looking at all sorts of ways to save bandwidth including lazy loading. Most of the time the lazy loading seems very quick so that don't inconvenience me as much but that was after I hid the temporary animated loading skeletons/placeholders elements and animations that seems to slow down the browser after every page load on Youtube and many other sites.


I forgot to mention that I pay for Youtube Premium (not to see the adverts during the video) so it looks like they are still advertising in a different form.

Normal adverts don't bother me as long as they are in their frame, don't play sound or videos (that slow down the browser) or flash excessively and don't do stuff outside it's banner space.

[SiliconWizard]

As to "ads" being forced upon you, well yeah it bites. But we all know free access to online resources is never free. Of course they'll add them on top of everything. That's the only way of ensuring you're going to see them whether you want to or not (and thus, get more money from announcers, as the priviledged "on top" locations are a lot more expensive.)

I forgot to mention that I pay for Youtube Premium (not to see the adverts during the video) so it looks like they are still advertising in a different form.

That's interesting. So Youtube premium doesn't actually cut off all adverts.

[MrMobodies]

That's why I am disapppointed.

It doesn't show them during the playback but when I search I am finding things I don't want to see at the top of everything else.

[Bicurico]

I think that is a trend to make you stay longer on a page and to better allow them to track you.

If it annoys you on YouTube, check out Facebook. Here they even change the order of the comments and decide per default to show you the more important replies instead of just showing them in chronological order. Even after switching to chronological order you need to click again to see previous replies.

It is not made to make the users life easier but to better monitor and monetize the user.

Regards,
Vitor

[Haenk]

Very much like Amazon, don't expect a "search" to be a "search" anymore. The age of the battle for the best search engine is over, it's now the age of the best monetization.
Your are receiving more of a curated list of suggestions, often in the interest of the platform (placing ads, their own products or stuff they want to sell faster at the top of the "results"), not the best matching search results.

[MrMobodies]

I think that is a trend to make you stay longer on a page and to better allow them to track you.

If it annoys you on YouTube, check out Facebook. Here they even change the order of the comments and decide per default to show you the more important replies instead of just showing them in chronological order. Even after switching to chronological order you need to click again to see previous replies.

It is not made to make the users life easier but to better monitor and monetize the user.

Regards,
Vitor

So it is now a trend to waste my time to a point that it can become clickbait if I can't find the rest of the information listed on the search engine in the name of tracking me and monetization.

That reminds me of what happened with Reddit where I rename www to old or it gives the most whatever best/score reply.

One thing I like about this board there is none of that rubbish to navigate through it seems straight foward.

I think that is a trend to make you stay longer on a page and to better allow them to track you.

If it annoys you on YouTube, check out Facebook. Here they even change the order of the comments and decide per default to show you the more important replies instead of just showing them in chronological order. Even after switching to chronological order you need to click again to see previous replies.

It is not made to make the users life easier but to better monitor and monetize the user.

Regards,
Vitor

I never really used Facebook and I rarely go on there not to write posts but to fine information where I have to be signed in (maybe tracking for that reason) but that is rare.

I hid a lot of elements from Amazon search such as the excessive loading spinners and dimming overlays and a load of fixed things added onto the Prime video and making thumbnails auto play trailers on mouse hover recently on certain parts of the site when they didn't before but had a play button to play the trailer. They're not happy that they are tracking me and that that they have to annoy me with so many other unwanted autoplay things. There is an explorer thing they added but it seems very slow, especially when using the filters which seems limited, very unstable and causes the browser to hang compared to the normal Amazon Prime search maybe they might replace that over the normal search one day. It looks to me like they are concentrating on how pretty to make this explorer thing look than anything else maybe there is some tracking in there that I don't know about.

Well if the worse happens there are always other search engines and video platforms.

[SiliconWizard]

Very much like Amazon, don't expect a "search" to be a "search" anymore. The age of the battle for the best search engine is over, it's now the age of the best monetization.

More generally speaking, the age of companies making the best products they can in their customers' interest is gone. The trend is to make whatever barely fits customers' needs so that they'll still buy, while maximizing revenue and minimizing costs through indirect revenue schemes.

The fact companies once did the former was not in itself because they were more philanthropic or something. It's just because this was the only way to sell products to customers and survive among competitors.

Now that competitors all do the same shit, just because they can (indirect monetization schemes have literally exploded and are easier to deploy than ever), all they have to do is to keep customers "interested". Certainly not to make the best products in their customers' best interest. Because, again, they don't have to anymore!

Is there a limit to this? We'll see.

Your are receiving more of a curated list of suggestions, often in the interest of the platform (placing ads, their own products or stuff they want to sell faster at the top of the "results"), not the best matching search results.

That's pretty well put IMO.

[BrokenYugo]

Very much like Amazon, don't expect a "search" to be a "search" anymore. The age of the battle for the best search engine is over, it's now the age of the best monetization.
Your are receiving more of a curated list of suggestions, often in the interest of the platform (placing ads, their own products or stuff they want to sell faster at the top of the "results"), not the best matching search results.

My favorite is when I give an exact part number for something and I get more close matches and related parts than actual matches or cross refs.

[Cyberdragon]

Exactly...you look up the number for a motor driver H-bridge chip and get results for heat shrink tubing...