Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Subscribe popups
Raised as a usability problem by 18 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 18 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Subscribe box pops up on scroll and makes the rest of the page unreadableUnreviewed
20132026- A subscribe box pops up on scroll and makes the rest of the page unreadable2024-09-05
- Subscribe button leads to a login page instead of subscribing2021-01-05
- Subscribe popups are annoying and hard to dismiss, so users leave the site instead2020-06-15
Giant mobile subscribe popup appears before the article, forcing readers to leaveUnreviewed
20132026- Giant mobile subscribe popup appears before reading the article, forcing exit2026-03-03
- Fixed subscribe bar covers the article text on mobile, forcing a workaround to read2019-08-29
- Subscribe popup breaks the page on mobile devices2016-04-23
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 18 complaints
- Giant mobile subscribe popup appears before reading the article, forcing exit2026-03-03
- Scrolling triggers a nag popup that jumps the page to top and has low-contrast close button2024-12-28
- Modal resets reading position to top of the page, disrupting reading2024-09-25
- A subscribe box pops up on scroll and makes the rest of the page unreadable2024-09-05
- Paywall modal blocks reading article content, forcing subscription prompts2023-04-12
- Pop-up subscribe windows interrupt reading and get closed immediately2022-06-03
- Subscribe button leads to a login page instead of subscribing2021-01-05
- Modal's close button is off-screen in landscape mode and can't be scrolled to2020-06-25
- Subscribe popups are annoying and hard to dismiss, so users leave the site instead2020-06-15
- Fixed subscribe bar covers the article text on mobile, forcing a workaround to read2019-08-29
- Page is cluttered with subscribe popups, notifications and ads that interrupt reading2016-12-13
- Subscribe popup appears immediately on first visit, before knowing if site is useful2016-08-26
- Full-screen subscribe popups interrupt and ruin the link preview interaction2016-08-07
- Subscribe popup breaks the page on mobile devices2016-04-23
- Popup blocks the content the user wants to read2015-07-28
- Mobile popup is larger than the viewport, so it's hard to close2014-09-02
- Clicking subscribe just reloads the same page instead of subscribing2013-11-07
- Close button sits off-screen on small displays, so the overlay can't be dismissed2013-02-05