Opening a New York Times article triggers 422 network requests and 49 MB of data. Teardown of how news sites turn hostile UX into business. (Shubham Bose)
- Before the user reads a word, while a programmatic ad auction runs silently in the browser's main thread.
- The piece catalogs specific hostile UX patterns across major publishers: simultaneous modals, auto-playing sticky video, cumulative layout shift from late-loading ads, and close buttons sized to generate accidental clicks.
- Lightweight alternatives like text.npr.org and RSS feeds already exist and work fine, which makes the bloat a business choice, not a technical inevitability.
