An amazing read. I can't imagine being in that situation. This is the sort of ordeal that movies should be made of.

Silly. This wouldn't explain why people still get the delay in a "clean" version of firefox, or why the delay disappears when the only thing changed is spoofing that your browser is chrome instead.

"Public companies...legally have to put shareholders first."

I thought this too, but it is apparently a myth.

"There is a common belief that corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize corporate profits and “shareholder value” — even if this means skirting ethical rules, damaging the environment or harming employees. But this belief is utterly false.

To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits

I think the term is A-B testing. When a company wants to see what effect a change will have, they don't force it on everyone at once, just on a certain number of people (A), and then see what happens compared to the rest (B).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/A-B_testing_example.png

This is why you'll always get people saying, "Huh, I haven't seen that. It's not doing it for me on [browser]." They're in the (B) group...for now.

The data the company wants is to know if, do the test people like the change (or are at least willing to tolerate it)? Or do they spend less time on the site? If so, how much? If the results are within their predictions, they'll expand the testing until everyone is in (A).

There can also be A-B-C-D-etc testing, where some people who get the blocking windows would be able to close it, and some wouldn't. How many of each ended up disabling their adblock?

This also helps to "boil the frog", where they can slowly get people used to the idea that this is happening, rather than having a whole wave of surprised outrage at once.

I see...and why is it the thumbnail on an article for a piece of computer hardware?

Okay but why is the thumbnail an erotic underwear model with her bush out?