I wonder how much of this kind of stuff exists out of necessity and how much of it exists because very smart people are just bored and/or unsatisfied.
Are there any articles that supplement this that explain how much business value is added/lost by the existence/removal of these kind of features? In the case of NYT I suspect its popularity is maintained because of the perception (real or not) of high quality journalism, in spite of any technical failings.
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How much would be lost if NYT was just implemented as text articles that are cached and styled with some CSS. "Personalization" could be added by tags each article has and a small component that shows the three most recent articles that share the same tag.
Are there any articles that supplement this that explain how much business value is added/lost by the existence/removal of these kind of features? In the case of NYT I suspect its popularity is maintained because of the perception (real or not) of high quality journalism, in spite of any technical failings.
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How much would be lost if NYT was just implemented as text articles that are cached and styled with some CSS. "Personalization" could be added by tags each article has and a small component that shows the three most recent articles that share the same tag.