alt Hacker NewsWe can all agree that the internet was great and now it is less great, but the second someone articulates a very, very simple rule, the "well ackchyually" crew comes out of the woodwork.
Infinite scroll is very obviously unnecessary. It is very obviously intended to keep people on an app longer than they would otherwise use it. You can lazy load into a finite scroll. Just make people click something every once in a while.
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What's very obviously unnecessary is the need for a law to police this. You can just not use things you don't like. This need to project one's own morality upon others will be the source of endless conflict.
> Just make people click something every once in a while
But why? This is EU Cookies Banner level of state interference making UX worse for everyone just because some lawmaker doesn't like something.
Not only it's unnecessary, it also bad GUI. In apps with infinite scrolling your position doesn't get its own state, so if you eg. go view a post & return to Instagram timeline it opens at the beginning. If you use media more thoughtfully as opposed to mindless scrolling, it just doesn't work.
With pagination you could say return to IG after a week, go through 5 pages of whoever you're following, check out a post, go back knowing you stopped at 5th, and continue from there. You can also set a limit (I'll check 10 pages tops and then go to sleep), which is helpful even with algorithmic feed.
I'm sure they can screw up pagination too if they wanted, but typical implementations don't have this issue
> Infinite scroll is very obviously unnecessary
All the different flavors of yogurt in the grocery store are unnecessary. We only need 2.
The issue is that "Infinite Scroll" is just a manifestation of a deeper problem. You can't cure a problem by legislating away symptoms.
> but the second someone articulates a very, very simple rule, the "well ackchyually" crew comes out of the woodwork.
On HN definitely, if half of the people here are really invested in that stuff themselves.
> It is very obviously intended to keep people on an app longer than they would otherwise use it.
What are you, protoplasm with eyes? Exert some willpower and get a grip. I've never known such a wimpy whining generation as this one
Is it? It appears consumers prefer it. Are they all wrong? Should we ignore the preferences of other people because you are the all-knowing lord of the internet?
Give me a break
Should all buttons require a confirmation dialog to prevent people from making decisions too hastily? Should we ensure all interactions have at least 100ms of latency so users don’t get mesmerized by a smooth experience? Maybe we should set a max color saturation so nothing looks too enticing. We also don’t really need box shadows or gradients, they’re clearly meant to mesmerize users into making bad decisions.
What an absurd and pointless precedent to set.