That's how news websites are supposed to look like. It's not good for revenue though, because there's no way to trick the user into clicking ads, nor dive into mindless scrolling.
I wonder if it would be possible to align revenue generation with user experience, instead of both goals being incompatible with each other.
Just like how I don't try to run the latest edition of Flight Simulator on my 4-GB, GPU-less device; I also don't try to visit websites built with latest web features using browsers that are clearly not trying to support those features.
NYT doesn't have to hinder its innovative efforts to create informative content just because of a couple of folks who refuse to admit that tech evolves over time.
I understand that ads can be annoying, and for that I use ad blockers where necessary; but for everything else, I appreciate the advancements in the web tech capabilities that enable the creation of amazing stuff.
Well, tbf, I'm speculating based on the evidence provided. But, if NYT provides a poor—or non-existent—experience to anyone, for example, without JavaScript enabled, then it fits my definition of "bad".
> Most users happily open bloat sites and pay with their privacy and being manipulated.
You can use bloat sites and pay with your privacy and be manipulated for free or you can pay for the experience, but you'll be using bloat sites and pay with your privacy and be manipulated no matter what.
Most user will probably want images, slightly more styling and recommendations on what to read next... other than that it's a perfectly usable website for the everyday user, something that can't be said about most news sites today, sadly.
I mean who even reads ad-spam websites in the first place? They used to host little bits of knowledge you'd search for... now I can reach that better via ChatGPT (eg. How to do mission X in video game Y)
I can only imagine... I read some well crafted news, no ads, no malicious tracking, no ad-blocker-blocker popup, no newsletter popup - and at end of the article: "This experience was great because we're supported by XYZ company, they have no control of our editorial process" (with company logo). Tasteful, still supported by ads, probably completely unsustainable.
I agree. I'm about to start paying for news again. Had only 2 years worth of subscriptions for news publications in print in about 20 years of adulthood. That's kinda crazy.
And if I subtract university and active library times, I really wonder how I didn't turn towards the conspiratorial kind of thought patterns instead of viewing it all in the light of "cooperation in a complex world full of prenatally brain damaged magic money people".
Looks like you've basically created an RSS frontend for reuters.com. Which is useful since they seem to have got rid of their own feeds. Would be nice if you could add your own feed so that neuters is actually readable via RSS.
Some issues with pagination. I would recommend a non limit offset combo. Right now i get an error: "You tried to access /world/" when manually change the offset.
Does anyone know about the legal implications of building such a "fronted"? Doesn't Reuters own the copyright zo the contents of their news articles? Can't they send a Cease & Desist (or worse) to the developer, given they are potentially losing some ad revenue?
Thanks. Is there some rule of thumb about how much should the article change so that the copyright doesn't apply any more? These points come to my mind:
- There is a whole category of software called "news aggregators". Are they all infringers? How can they operate, apart from praying that the news outlet doesn't care?
- News outlets quote each other, e.g. "According to Reuters", etc. Does that solve the copyright issue? Is it only the 100% verbatim copy that is copyrighted?
Aggregators are references to content. Frontends are copies. You can't sidestep copyright with a "according to Reuters" preamble for the entire article text.
I agree with the parent comment, though - it wasn't obvious to me that this is the 'About' page of the site. Also, the link to go to the Home page is in footer right at the bottom.
Web pages have hyperlinks for us to use. Why would you ignore that?
Going back to home page should be built in and easy. I had the same issue, mobile browsers don't even show uri properly or hide menu, so manually editing address is not exactly my first thought on how to navigate a web page.
Reuters really broke the site for me when they did what looked like a rewrite about a year ago. Glad to see this as I hardly read it anymore. bbc news is going downhill too, another prime candidate for a project like this.
I did one of these some years back and used it for a while. It stopped working and I didn't bother trying to fix it. I can post the code someplace if anyone wants it. A page or two of Python.
Firefox reading mode? It won't work with all sites, though. A lot of large sites are insanely broken, so Firefox doesn't propose reading mode at all, or nothing loads.
Honestly, I have only one way with dealing with those: not using those sites.
Ads don't offend me categorically. If publishers had text links, plain banners or any combination of content that added up to around 100kb sans images, I would probably consume more of their content and occasionally click an ad.
Video interstitials, paywalls or modal dialogs asking me to allow megabytes of tracking requests are a deal breaker. Anything that annoys or slows me down is more expensive than the value of the content, which I typically want to skim.
The content is rarely worth it. As it concerns Reuters, the same content will be parroted and recycled elsewhere. Legacy media is tone deaf from editorial policy to the nuts and bolts of how content is displayed.
I wonder if it would be possible to align revenue generation with user experience, instead of both goals being incompatible with each other.