'Your Frustration Is the Product'

John Gruber highlights Shubham Bose's analysis of how major publisher websites like The New York Times load 49MB of data with hundreds of network requests. Publishers optimize for viewability and time-on-page metrics, resulting in hostile UX filled with ads, modals, autoplay videos, and newsletter prompts that leave minimal screen space for actual content. Gruber argues readers aren't respected at all, and even content blockers can't fully remedy the adversarial design driven by auction-based ad incentives.