I’ll note this was much less of a problem back when it was essentially impossible for websites to look different from this (and not just because it hadn’t occurred to anyone to try to mislead browser users yet). This problem is solvable, it “just” requires removing all the Turing complete components (possibly bundling them off in their own thing so they can metastasize independently and never infect the web again) and restricting styling somewhat (probably to the actual benefit of content delivery).
(As a completely unrelated aside, how did Netscape get away with those giant toolbar buttons? Those are sizable even for today, and screens back then were typically much smaller.)
Even with a quarter of a VGA screen eaten by buttons, you can still fit a lot of info in wall to wall text. Big UI was a necessity for users unfamiliar with it. That screenshot still fit more info on the screen than the average Web 2.0 blog about page does.
I’ll note this was much less of a problem back when it was essentially impossible for websites to look different from this (and not just because it hadn’t occurred to anyone to try to mislead browser users yet). This problem is solvable, it “just” requires removing all the Turing complete components (possibly bundling them off in their own thing so they can metastasize independently and never infect the web again) and restricting styling somewhat (probably to the actual benefit of content delivery).
(As a completely unrelated aside, how did Netscape get away with those giant toolbar buttons? Those are sizable even for today, and screens back then were typically much smaller.)
Even with a quarter of a VGA screen eaten by buttons, you can still fit a lot of info in wall to wall text. Big UI was a necessity for users unfamiliar with it. That screenshot still fit more info on the screen than the average Web 2.0 blog about page does.