Last.FM redesign

In a word, horrific.

The internet has been becoming more and more unusable.
In Last.FM's case, everything is HUGE now and a pain to scroll through. They'll call it "sleek" and "modern", which are corporate buzzwords for "please pay attention to me".

I don't fucking understand why EVERYTHING needs a redesign when the original design is just fucking fine. 999,999,999 times out of 1,000,000,000, it ends up being a mess of a downgrade. This is also why I've turned off automatic updates on my computer and everything I use on it.

The thing I miss most about pretty much every website ever is pages. For example, say a thread here has over 750 posts. On this beautiful website, you can look through pages, and if you don't want to read it all at once, you can bookmark or make a note of which page you were on and continue later. It's simple, fucking OBVIOUS, and it works beautifully.

Now let's look at Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or what the fuck ever. Everything loads in from the bottom, meaning you never have to click anything or wait for another page to load. This is great for ADD-addled children who don't care about anything.
But what if there's someone hilarious on Twitter? Like, they have over 10,000 twitters, and most of them are pure gold. WELL FUCK THAT
EVEN IF THE TWITTERS ARE TECHNICALLY STILL EXISTENT, YOU CAN'T SEE THEM EVER
(This is a huge reason why I have made a different Twitter account for the last three E3s)


The internet is getting worse and worse as they casualise it for normies who don't give a shit about the past. Things get lost and buried forever because web developers don't care to give people BASIC FUCKING FUNCTIONS THAT WE'VE HAD SINCE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
"They're trying to get rid of the barrier of entry", oh fuck that. I was a stupid fucking kid and I figured it out. If they can't figure out something so fucking simple, they don't deserve to use it. Return to elementary school and fuck off. Once casualisation gets in the way of people who know what they're doing being able to actually do what they want, it's gone too far and whoever approved this bullshit needs to be KILLED.

The reason for a lot of these redesigns is the cursed Smartphone.

In the past, websites were just mini versions if they were viewed on a smartphone. People had to zoom and search everywhere for things they need.

To get around this issue, the solution was M Dot pages (m.youtube.com, for example), which is a completely separate domain that appears different for mobile users than desktop. It was really a nightmare when friends would you send you mobile youtube links that broke everything on desktop. This is quickly going away in favor for the current design (which you hate):

Responsive Design

Which means the page auto zooms and shows the most important content, and the domain is the same. Programmers don't have to worry about what platform people are on, because they can configure the site to do the same thing no matter if they're on mobile or desktop. It's pretty efficient, and quite handy for programmers. Unfortunately, this means tons of sites are redesigning for the mobile users.

and that's because Mobile use is SO FUCKING MASSIVE HOLY SHIT (but for real, it's exploding in popularity, no business can keep up with it [except for smartphone providers {and their sweatshops in southeast asia}]).

So really, these changing site designs are a sign that these sites actually care about their customers, even if desktop users generally don't like the change. Welcome to the minority.

The reason pages are disappearing is that mobile users want to scroll. clicking around on a touch screen with fat grubby fingers is a chore. Sliding that fat and grease all over the screen is much more convenient  

On that same note, convenience really is the key here. Most of these sites, even if free to join, are after money and making it easy for people to do the things they want. If people can do things in 2 slides rather than 2 clicks, websites can get their page views and customer satisfaction scores up and gather that ad revenue by coding out one page rather than two. It's really quite smart.

Honestly, I don't mind the changes to Last.fm. I think it looks nice. Though I don't really like the fixed header, and I do miss having every option in the drop down. I especially miss Scrobbles Per Day which isn't showing up for me when I hover like before. RIP

I already knew all that.

Segregated internet was better for absolutely everyone. Occasionally getting an unusable mobile link was far better than not being able to do fucking anything you want to.
Smartphone users get everything they want, computer users get everything they want. Separate, but equal.

The current system is just a way for lazy-ass web developers to only cater to the lowest common denominator (which is growing larger and larger by the day), leaving their original fans behind with absolutely nothing.
It's absolutely disgusting, and this mentality is EVERYWHERE. However, in every other case, there will always be someone somewhere making something for the people who have been around since day one. For example, while most AAA game developers are making walking simulators and "press X to win" games, Nintendo has continued to make actual videogames that require skill, but still have a satisfying enough difficulty curve for casuals to get interested.

You can't do this with the internet. Someone somewhere has made an alternative to YouTube. Unfortunately, no one can use it, even if they want to. YouTube is where everything already is, what everyone already knows, and where everyone will continue to put their content. Google can turn the entire website into an eye-raping rainbow of gaudy colours and remove 95% of the features they've still got, but we'll be fucked if we can do anything.


But Last.FM isn't YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or whatever. Last.FM is pretty much a website for people who already know what they're doing. If you look on any of their posts about the new site, the comments are nothing but "this sucks" "change it back" "sign my petition to change it back". I'm not in the minority in this case.

making it easy for people to do the things they want
do ho ho i'm laughin'
Trying to access any of my profile options on YouTube is ridiculously frustrating. I never know where to click, and spend ten minutes searching for what I'm looking for every time. The previous layout was simple, easy to use, and actually fucking worked.
Now it's sleek! and modern! and doesn't work.







I still believe that if you're browsing the internet with a fucking phone, you deserve to be shat upon at every opportunity. Fuck those people.

While people can complain all day long about how broken it is or how much different experiences are for desktop users, the bottom line is businesses are getting most of their visits (aka money) from mobile. Websites typically don't have tons of users without making lots of money, so of course they're gonna want to cater to the way people use it most.

I don't really know about Last.fm. I've known quite a few people to use it like a pandora station, just using their radio stations to listen to music. The ability to still keep track of what you've listened to and when is still around, so I think last.fm is fine.

Youtube is definitely only about money though. And with such a big name site, of course they're going to focus a lot on mobile users.
Shame they already have the idiotic youtube app. It's the worst thing about youtube in my eyes.

As far as internet on phones...I can see the advantages. It's certainly cheaper and more portable. I prefer desktop (on one now) but mobile is certainly handy in a pinch.

Last.FM doesn't even have a built-in music player any more. It just redirects to Spotify.

Another thing I hate about NewTube? You have to hover over the video to see the timestamp. Absolutely terrible.


What I really don't understand, in general, is why rich people want even more money. Five million dollars is far more than enough for anyone to live the rest of their life, doing pretty much everything they want. It's when you start to want solid gold toilets and diamond-encrusted TV remotes when you really need to rethink your life. If someone is doing THAT with their money, the government ought to be able to take it all away and redistribute it to the poor or something. Thousands of poor families can eat for the rest of their lives... or you can have three yachts, a private jet, and a solid gold statue of yourself in Cuba.

There's absolutely no reason a company with millions and millions and millions and MILLIONS of dollars should be doing anything but trying to make their product the best it can be for everyone. You don't need that much money in any capacity; at the very least, you should be using it to improve your product.
Companies should be aiming to break even. That way, they know they have given the best possible service they can provide. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason, and I truly hope that these multi-multi-multi-millionaires all end up burning in Hell for not even having the decency to make their product usable.

if i was god, only about three people would be in heaven

While I agree about the uber rich being among the scummiest people on earth, I think in these examples the websites believe they are making it better for everyone.
Responsive Design has become the standard now, so sites that don't conform to it are essentially behind the times. That means investors are unhappy, users are unhappy, not to mention the new issue is comparing websites to 90s websites (which is weird because a growing segment of their visitors have zero experience with the 90s).

Last.fm has hardly changed in the nearly 10 years we've been there, which is extremely rare among serious websites. I don't blame them for doing a change, and really the only difference I can tell is the visual differences. It still functions like I'd expect it to for what I use it for, I think it's alright.

Since youtube basically has a monopoly on the video sharing part of the internet, they can do no wrong. Everyone will always come back. I think they're taking this opportunity to be trend-setters, which unfortunately means what they do, other sites will start copying.
I don't actually know for sure, but I would guess a majority of people using youtube probably don't even have an account. They just click random links friends send and happen to bounce around to other videos. For now, I think Youtube is definitely focusing their efforts on video watchers and not video uploaders. Perhaps that will be coming in the future.

So, I work at a tech firm in NYC right now. We have tons of clients across the board, paying us a lot or paying us a little. And for sure if a super rich account requests a feature or a function, we bend over backwards for them. We don't want to lose clients like that. If a small account requests something, we put it on the backburner and, honestly, probably never touch it.

That being said, on a site like Last.FM, I doubt they're taking any complaints from free users using adblocker seriously.

On youtube, they probably don't take anyone seriously unless advertisers start threatening to pull or something. It's going to be basically impossible for there to be any tangible change on any of these sites, regardless of how much complaining you or others do. Honestly, it probably took Last.FM $500k+ and over a year of planning and development to implement the changes. To just reverse it would be ludicrous.

So, I guess the real problem is that no one understands the most important saying we as a species have ever created.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Why would you ever spend money to completely overhaul something everyone's happy with? It makes absolutely no sense.
And at this point in history, we shouldn't be taking ANYONE who doesn't remember the '90s seriously. They're literally children.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Unfortunately, that ain't the american way.

The american way is living in constant fear that someone will come along and one-up your product or service and, unless you innovate and stay ahead of the curve, you're going to end up the next myspace

All right, new topic.

Can we talk about THIS abomination?
https://gaming.youtube.com/

I get that it's designed for mobile. I get that it's for casuals and normies and whatever else.

WHY
CAN THEIR SHITTY UI
COVER THE FUCKING SCROLL BAR

THAT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL
YOU DON'T FUCK WITH THE SCROLL BAR
I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU COULD

This is the biggest abomination of web design I've ever seen. Making it impossible to use the scroll bar should get you executed.

Before you say "us da scroll whell nub", fuck off. The page is huge, so you'd have to click it in and flick your mouse up. Except you can't, because the page is absolutely COVERED in links. That's why the scroll bar still exists. It has a purpose and a function.

I got a 404, so i refuse to believe this exists

why is there a gaming specific youtube page anyway!? what are they planning?

They're trying to dethrone Twitch as "THE" videogame streaming site.

Honestly, it's the obvious business strategy, since YouTube is already "THE" video site. Since you can stream on YouTube now (and everyone who does or would want to do Twitch more than likely has a YouTube account), it just makes sense.
The only problem I see is that the UI is cluttered and unintuitive, even when you translate it to a phone or tablet. Plus the scroll bar thing, which is a sin.

I'm really glad that the auto-play random stream up top is muted by default, though, so that's one nice thing.


Clicking on a video on the front page (FUCKING MADDEN TENGH), I actually kind of like the layout here.
You can scroll through the description, related videos, AND comments while still being able to keep one eye on the video.

I also like that it's black by default, which is much easier on the eyes.


So I guess the layout of the actual "watch videos" part is good, but the homepage is absolutely disgusting. However, I can't access my subscriptions at all from it, so I will probably never use it. Shame.
It'll probably end up being the main site's layout eventually anyway.

Good news! I was messing around today and realized the scrobbles per day now shows up on scrolling over the total scrobbles again.

shame the recommendations tab is still pretty awful. I mean, half the recommendations are songs you've already listened to :'(

small victories I suppose

also shame about there being zero notifications that you've got a new comment on your page