Beware Substack. I received a newsletter today that I had never heard of, so I unsubscribed—to find that I had allegedly signed up to everything that the user publishes. Not bloody likely.
This wasn’t a case of being on someone else’s Substack and accidentally clicking ‘Yes’ to other suggested newsletters. Normally there’d only be three or four, from different authors. Not seven from one author.
In the Mastodon thread discussing this, Elizabeth Tai wrote, ‘there was one time I paid subscribed to someone, then unsubscribed. A year later not only was I still subscribed I was paying paid subscriptions 😭. I was very very sure I ended my paid subscription! I think something fishy is happening with them’.
So beware of Substack. I’ve signed up to follow a few friends but that’s it: I won’t sign up to any more. I hear it’s not that great a platform anyway.
Once again, there was some godawful web design with the TV3 website. I tried signing on to this years ago and got nowhere but with the network having changed hands a few times since, they might have got their act together.
No.
For a start, with my settings, there’s not much to see. I know I take privacy more seriously than most people—which is odd, as I don’t consider wanting privacy to be a strange thing—so it’s likely that my decision to block trackers means this website doesn’t display.
This is seriously bad, bad design. Displaying words and images shouldn’t be dependent on whether you allow US companies and data brokers to scour your browser to profile you. Doing this is a conscious decision: it is not accidental. The World Wide Web is set up to display words and images by default. Someone had to intentionally program in code to prevent a privacy-conscious person from accessing anything.
From a marketing point-of-view, this is terrible. You don’t even get to show off what you have. Sure, block me from watching, but wouldn’t you want me to know what I’ve missed? (The same stupid design decisions have been made at Stuff.)
OK, let’s give them what they want. I have a Microsoft Edge browser on this PC that I use on a few occasions, say once every few weeks, and there are no protections on it. This is the village bicycle where everyone gets a ride.
I sign up. So far so good. I head to the programme that Amanda wants me to check out.
And ‘Sorry! / Oops, you’re using an unsupported browser!’
Let me get this straight: TV3 doesn’t want Microsoft Edge users.
That’s basically anyone in the New Zealand Government, and anyone who buys a Windows computer and doesn’t change its settings. I’m sure Edge has a reasonable market share. And I know Windows has a huge market share. I’m beginning to think that TV3’s poor financial performance might partly be down to blocking access to large swathes of the population.
You have to use Google Chrome (even though Chrome and Edge are based on Chromium) or Firefox. This is, like the blank pages, by design.
The former is absolutely, unequivocally out of the question given Google’s terrible record, but let’s give Firefox a go.
Even the recommended browser doesn’t work.
Yes, I have a tracker blocker, but I don’t use an ad blocker. I make ad income off the web, too, so it’s not in my interests to block ads, and I want my colleagues to make money. But I don’t wish to be tracked. This seems a fair and reasonable position. I don’t track anyone with our ads, nor do we sell user data to foreigners. I expect the same courtesy from my colleagues. Surely you have some ads of the many in your library that don’t have trackers?
I see the small type. ‘Ad blockers can stop this video from playing correctly. Find out more.’ That ‘Find out more’ is linked, or appears to be (because the magnifying glass up top doesn’t work consistently, so you never really know).
Let me click that as I do want to find out more, and maybe they’ll tell me why blocking trackers is the same as blocking ads.
This is a half-baked site that looks like it has never been tested by anyone. Sky paid NZ$1 to Warners for this network? They overpaid.
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