[marginalia_nu]

I'd argue the inconsistency in design is not limited to old websites. If anything, it's far worse with modern websites, since they aggressively re-style interface elements and frequently invent their own paradigms. Scrolling may re-arrange the content of a document, sometimes a desktop website has mobile paradigms like hamburger button causing a laggy menu to appear, often with buttons with no label that are decorated with minimalist line-art icons that are about as easy to parse as Linear B. Links are replaced with buttons, which are never natively styled and rarely clear that they are buttons. You have to click and find out. Sometimes clicking in a blank area causes something unpredictable to happen. Scrolling up or moving the mouse cursor to the edge of the window may cause pop over-elements to cover the text. The design is constantly shifting and moving around as ads are loaded randomly within whatever you're reading. Resizing the window may cause UI elements to move around, or to appear, or be hidden. Clicking a link may cause the ephemeral state of the document to change. The back button doesn't work after this happens. Sometimes scrolling down breaks the back button as well.