Finally, Slate’s providing readers with an alternative experience to “one of the worst design and usability sins on the Web” — but it’ll cost you. For $5 per month, Slate Plus members won’t have to deal with paginated articles or ads during podcasts.
It’s a “freemium” pay model, or a “reverse paywall,” that adds features for subscribers rather than substracting them for nonsubscribers. But it still creates classes of haves and have-nots: those who have to click the “single page” button to see a story on a single page and those who don’t.
So that got us wondering: What awful usability features of browsing the Web would you pay to make go away? Interstitial ads like those that play before Washington Post content (even photo slideshows!)? The prompt to download or open an app on whenever you visit a mobile site like CNN? Pop-ups like those on Poynter asking you to donate money or pop-ups like those on Mashable asking you to like a Facebook page?
Let us know what online annoyances you’d pay to eliminate on news sites in the comments, on Twitter or via email: skirkland@poynter.org.
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