These "immersive" stories will disappear once the realization that the ROI on them doesn't work. Expensive to create, but no income generated because no-one reads them because they are annoying.
The only companies left using them will be those with no concern about ROI such as here; the state-funded BBC.
I'm sure it looks good on the designer's CV though. Who cares about the people who have to actually read the content...
That's what I used to think about all-flash websites.
They did go away, more or less, but only because the Web became that same pixel-per-pixel full-designer-control application platform, with all the same obnoxious problems that made us hate Flash, minus the binary blob.
The overwhelming majority of websites would be better served by simple HTML3 with no javascript at all. Or rather, their users would be better served.
> the Web became that same pixel-per-pixel full-designer-control application platform, with all the same obnoxious problems that made us hate Flash, minus the binary blob.
Hasn't that always been possible using JS? I know that Firefox in its distant past once had an option to not allow websites to catch right clicks, but it's been gone for quite a while.
And disable copy&paste in really clever ways so you can't just edit an attribute on a textfield to paste your text. Browsers helpfully expose a on paste event that can be hijacked from various places and text manipulated during paste. I'm an embedded dev and I can't get my head around it so I'm happy for a webdev to correct me if I'm wrong.
Not sure the story would have made it as far on HN if it was presented more plainly. It would be just another long-form piece that didn't draw in enough people.
The only companies left using them will be those with no concern about ROI such as here; the state-funded BBC.
I'm sure it looks good on the designer's CV though. Who cares about the people who have to actually read the content...