[Grace]

John Gruber writes about those annoying popups every website seems to have now and while he does a great job tearing into these ubiquitous, user-hostile patterns, one of the things that stood out to me about his piece was this meta commentary on blogging. Here’s John:

If you visit a website you should … see the website. See its content. Be able to read the article whose page you are attempting to visit. Showing a “subscribe to our newsletter” or “accept our f*****g cookies” dickover to someone trying to read an article on the web makes no more sense than sending out an email newsletter that only contains a link to read the newsletter on a webpage. A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this.

It’s funny how often blogging feels like being the little child in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. You’re just stating what seems obvious to you.

I often look at my own posts and think, “There’s nothing novel, or important, or deep in here at all — is this even worth saying?”

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvious/

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