Sunday Snippets - the end of the internet?

I have become very tired of constant changes to web sites. This is the new Canberra Times web site. No doubt it's been designed for mobile use, and that's a problem in itself, but its actually a crowded mess for a serious user with limited time. More pap, less content, time consuming navigation.

This is the new Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) web site. At first sight it looks visually appealing. I am still learning to navigate my way around. That, of itself, is a problem. Time limited, I resent having to relearn navigation. However, there is a greater problem. Most of these changes actually take content away. Instead of making it easy for users to choose the content they want, organisations decide which content they think users might want to have. The result can be a mess.

Two weeks ago, I wanted some census data. I know that it's there. I have used it before and very efficient it was. In just a week, I was able to track the pattern of certain key attributes across NSW. Now I wanted part of the same data for one area in Victoria. I could not find it. ABS kept giving me the information that it thought that I might be interested in minus the key data I wanted.

No doubt it's there, but now I need to spend a large slab of time relearning how to find stuff that once was simple.

We are our own worst enemies, of course.

Thursday morning flying to Melbourne, there was a free copy of The Australian. I read it on the plane with interest. I may dislike the paper's political stance, but there was some good stuff there. Since the on-line Australian went behind the paywall, I had stopped reading both the on-line and paper editions. Note I said both. I used to check the on-line stuff, but also buy the paper itself from time to time because I was interested in learning more. Once the paywall went in, the paper dropped of my radar and so did my purchases.

Reading the paper, I thought that if I want the print editions to survive I should buy them. There is still a problem, mind you. If I'm going to quote a story, I want to be able to give an on-line reference and I can't because of the pay wall..

Staying with the worst enemy theme, I little while ago I got a new mobile phone. Suddenly on the way to and from work, I found myself joining the assembled throng checking Facebook and messages. It was quite nice, but then I had to say what am I doing?!  This was my train reading time, a brief and actually precious space, and now I was caught in the trap of instant stimulation to redeem the tedium of travel. Except, and this is important, travel time wasn't tedious. I was trading stimulation for thought.

Recently, Google changed its search algorithms. Part of the aim was to make the search function more mobile friendly. I checked my blogs  as suggested and was told that they were mobile friendly, in part I think because a use a simple old-style format. However, one outcome was a very sharp fall - around 70% - in my total blog traffic.I still have quite high traffic, but the fall is very noticeable.

Then I realised something else. When I went to do my own web searches, the proportion of crap had exploded. It was taking me more and more time to find useful information. I search over a number of computers in different places and the pattern was the same. Even Wikipedia is not immune. Who would have thought that that the Wikipedia entry on a topic would end up on the second or third search page?! And as for "minor" sites like the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the only way I can be certain of getting there is by putting in an ADB identifier.

Yes, to a degree I can work my my way around all this, but it leaves me wondering. The internet was seen as a freedom device, a way of finding things and communicating, that would allow even small niches and specialist interests to reach out and survive, Now I really wonder.

In a world where constant improvement and change is seen as a given, it can be hard to recognise that stability, not doing new things, can be of very real value.