Why do some non-paywalled webpages have a READ MORE button I have to click on before it reveals the rest of the article?
Good question. Analytics maybe?
I’m betting on this one. Registering a human click may be a way to show traffic and engagement vs what may be attributed to bots or some other artificial means.
Engagement 100%
I’d think that it’d be possible to do that less obtrusively. I mean, the “infinite scroll” model just loads content when hitting the bottom if the page. I inagine that a webpage could phone home once someone hits a given point in the page (and probably does).
Yep it definitely could but people might scroll without reading the article, maybe they think there’s another article underneath or maybe they’re just scrolling to see how long it is. Clicking read more gives a less noisy signal I would think.
In some web browsers, a mouse click gives the site permission to do things like open pop-up windows and play videos.
But it’s still probably more often about collecting data to add to your profile, recording which topics interested you sufficiently to get you to click the button.
I’m pretty sure its in order for you to see more ads. If the article shows a read more button after a paragraph there’s more room for ads and you’re more likely to accidentally scroll down and view them.
Wouldn’t I see more of them if they were just there rather than needing an extra click?
IN ORDER? THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUT OF FUCKING ORDER!
Analytics and robot defense have been mentioned.
They may also want to show you what’s at the bottom of the site earlier. Ad or click to next story or whatever.
Can also save bandwidth/load time. If they have a metric fuckton of garbage other than the text you were after on the site.
Most often though my browser has already loaded the rest as clicking “more” just slides the box down.
Advertising. Click to see MORE ads.
Wouldn’t they benefit from just showing the whole article with all the ads at once?
Not saying this is the case but imagine- someone comes to your site, they read half an article, you show an ad. If they’re interested, they click “more”, they get served the rest of the article and another ad. They now know that you like this article enough to want more, and every time you click that “more” button it’s really more like a “yes” button, and in advertising and sales getting a “yes” is a psychological barrier you want overcome, because once someone said yes to something, cognitive things happen in the brain that makes us more likely to keep saying yes, keep generating attention, and, as is the case, another sale- the ads.
Just brainstorming, but at this point we are so deep into the capitalist dystopian nightmare of advertising that for these guys, micro measurements make a difference, we may not know the particulars, but the purpose is engagement and make you stay, by employing common psychological tactics.
