The Internet Sucks
Why the recipe sits at the bottom of a short memoir
The story above the ingredients is not self-indulgence. It is a rational response to how search engines and advertising both work.
The Internet Sucks
Dark patterns, cookie walls, spam and websites designed to waste your afternoon.
12 articles · updated August 11, 2026
The Internet Sucks
Reject All is one click, unless somebody paid for it to be twelve
Consent banners were meant to give you a choice. Most of them are engineered so that one choice is exhausting and the other is a single tap.
More in The Internet Sucks
The Internet Sucks
Infinite scroll removed the bottom of the page on purpose
The end of a list used to be a natural place to stop. Somebody noticed that stopping points cost engagement, and deleted them.
The Internet Sucks
Only three left, apparently, for the last six months
Countdown timers and scarcity badges are conversion tools. Some of them describe real stock, and telling the difference takes ten…
The Internet Sucks
To stop receiving these emails, please remember a password you never set
Unsubscribing should be one click. When it is not, the friction is doing exactly what friction always does.
The Internet Sucks
The first four results are advertisements and the label is grey on grey
Search advertising has to be identified as advertising. Nothing says the identification has to be easy to see.
The Internet Sucks
Select every square containing a traffic light, including the pole
The puzzle is not testing whether you are human. It is a risk score, and the pictures appear when the score is ambiguous.
The Internet Sucks
A thousand words of nothing, written to match a search you made
Pages generated to occupy a search result have a recognisable shape, and learning it saves a great deal of reading.
The Internet Sucks
The video started playing and then followed you down the page
Autoplay exists because a played video counts as an impression. The little floating window exists because you tried to scroll away…
The Internet Sucks
This site is better in the app, insists the site, blocking the site
App install interstitials interrupt a working web page to promote a slower way of reaching the same content.
The Internet Sucks
No thanks, I prefer paying full price, and other things you must click
Confirmshaming writes the refusal option in words designed to make declining feel foolish. It is a deliberate technique with a name.
The Internet Sucks
Your password must contain a symbol, and not that symbol
Composition rules were designed to force variety and instead produced a predictable pattern that everybody follows and attackers…