‘Your Frustration Is the Product’ by John Gruber

The web is the only medium the world has ever seen where its highest-profile decision makers are people who despise the medium and are trying to drive people away from it. As Bose notes, “A lot of websites actively interfere the reader from accessing them by pestering them with their ‘apps’ these days. I don’t know where this fascination with getting everyone to download your app comes from.” It comes from people who literally do not understand, and do not enjoy, the web, but yet find themselves running large websites.

I had an interaction with a reader sometime back on a blog I had written about in the problem with read-it-later apps. They had mentioned then that I write what I want and don’t shove ads in your face as you tried to read - which was obvious to me. Reading is the thing you’re here to do.

But I myself don’t read on the web anymore. I use RSS to read. And that provides a great ad-free uniform experience to read.