Why are people chopping off their legs with consent forms?
2020-11-22 11:51:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith
A recent HN thread was discussing Why Japanese web design is so different. It’s based around an article written in 2013 but both the article and the thread discussion are an interesting read.
I believe that consent forms pose one of the worst usability problems the internet has ever seen, with big companies that have alternative news reading experiences benefitting immensely from the situation. Their products are slick and unbelievably lovely to use in comparison, but fundamentally non-weblike, featuring only big media brands and with no ability to link to articles.
I wondered if the US users knew how bad it had become, I asked about the prevalence of consent forms in Japan closing with:
Probably US users don’t know how bad it is because the US sites only add them to requests originating in the EU.
A canadian user commented that he didn’t think it was only EU users that saw the consent forms because he is seeing a lot of them too.
I don't think that's the case, if only anecdotally, as I have seen a huge uptick in these consent modals in Canada.
Most of these sites needed or wanted them implemented on the cheap. Restricting it to EU customers would require extra work...
If this truely is happening, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Why would a website owner that makes money from people viewing their website risk that by blocking users from viewing their website even when they are not legally required to do so?
Are they living in a strange parallel universe where money doesn’t affect them? (serious question btw)
There’s must be some crucial bit of missing information here, because it really makes no sense.