Kevin Drum is completely correct about how the web is getting more difficult to use and more user-hostile all the time.

This is all part of an ongoing evolution of the web that seems to be based on a desire to make the browsing experience as annoying as possible without quite going over the edge where people just give up on your site. A site that’s a micron short of that is ideal. You want your readers tearing their hair out, but not going ballistic enough to quit entirely. As more and more sites go down this road, it makes the web more a blood pressure raising machine than an information source. But it was nice while it lasted.

Tablets are the worst thing that ever happened to the internet. These are bad ideas for all sorts of reasons but putting all of this into practice would improve my life personally, so I am all for it: you cannot use the internet at all unless you can a) find your Start/Windows menu. b) score 110 or more on any standard IQ test c) pass a short test designed to demonstrate basic technological literacy.

I think the internet/web was best around 2000-2002 or so when most companies and smart people in the Western world were on it, but it hadn’t yet been completely overrun by capitalism, utter fucking idiots, their concomitant social networks and lest we forget, the NSA.

It’s all downhill from here, alas.