Info vs. Marketing
Whether or not this is a big deal to the rest of the world, I don’t know. But to me, there’s a big difference in how the web is being developed today, and how it was used even just three years ago. Everything on the web today is more or less about marketing. Online stores are all about cross-marketing between eachother, to ‘offer you more quality products.’ Corporate sites all have flashy animations and ‘cool graphics’ in order to clarify their marketing message to you (Flashturbation™, as 37signals calls it).
Even my ISP’s website is frustratingly marketing driven. All I want is a simple step-by-step outline explaining the process of how and who should be taking care of what as far as my DSL installation goes. As far as I can tell, I’m dealing with 4 wholly different companies here: USWest(Qwest) for the digital line added to my phone line in the basement; Earthlink, who is going to be the one billing me and is taking care of customer service; Mindspring, who is the Earthlink partner in my area who actually arranges the service to be installed, and Covad who is the actual installer and provider of said DSL line. Do you think I could even find a (worthwhile) FAQ about the DSL install? Of course not. All I can find are forms and links telling me to sign up. Which I did. About 6 weeks ago.
This sucks.