‘Your Frustration Is the Product’

A sharp critique of modern news websites that have become hostile to readers through excessive ads, autoplay videos, modals, and dark UX patterns. Drawing on Shubham Bose's analysis of a 49MB New York Times page with 422 network requests, the piece argues that publishers have made 'reader frustration the product' by optimizing for viewability and time-on-page metrics rather than user experience. The author contrasts these websites with their own print editions, which show far more respect for readers, and concludes that the people running major websites actively despise the medium they operate in.