In his video “Warum Millionen offline gehen (und wir schuld sind)” (“Why Millions Are Going Offline, and Why It’s Our Fault”), programmer Mario describes something all of us know firsthand: you mean to check one quick thing, and 30 minutes later you’re still scrolling. You open a website looking for one simple answer and get hit with a cookie banner, then a newsletter popup, and somewhere in the middle a chat widget starts flashing at you.
Mario’s point is simple: the problem isn’t the users. It’s us. And by “us,” he doesn’t just mean app developers. He means everyone involved in shaping digital products, from UX and product design to front-end development and growth optimization.
Going Analog Is Not a Trend. It’s Self-Defense.
More and more people are trying to cut back on screen time. They delete apps, buy dumb phones, and set hard boundaries around when they will and won’t be online. People call it “going analog,” and it’s clearly gaining momentum.
At first glance, that can look like technophobia. It isn’t. It’s a rational response to an online experience that increasingly feels manipulative, noisy, and exhausting. People aren’t stepping away from technology because they hate it. They’re stepping away because too much of it feels designed to take more than it gives.
Think about the last website you visited. How many interruptions did you have to clear before you could actually read anything? Accept the cookie banner. Close the newsletter popup. Decline browser notifications. Minimize the chatbot. None of that helps the visitor. It helps the operator, usually at the visitor’s expense.
The Engagement Trap: When Time Spent Becomes the Goal
Average personal screen time in Germany is now over six hours a day. Six hours. Not because everything online is that valuable, but because so much of it is engineered to keep people there.
Infinite scroll removes the natural stopping point. You keep going because your brain never gets the cue that says, “You’re done.”
Autoplay starts the next video before you’ve even decided whether you want to watch it. The choice is taken away from you on purpose.
Dark patterns make it hard to unsubscribe, turn off notifications, or cancel a subscription. The cancel button is buried. The “Upgrade now” button is bright, obvious, and impossible to miss.
And on websites, it gets even more blatant. “Accept all” is big, colorful, and easy to click. “Reject” is small, gray, and easy to miss. Popups don’t let you close them for three seconds. Exit-intent overlays ask whether you’re really sure you want to leave.
None of this is accidental. It’s the result of an industry that decided “engagement” was the metric that mattered most. The longer someone stays on the page, the more successful the product is considered. Whether the experience actually helps the user is often treated as secondary, if it gets considered at all.
Trust Is the Most Valuable Currency Online
That’s where the real damage happens. Every dark pattern, every manipulative notification, and every forced click chips away at trust. And trust is the most valuable thing any digital product has.
Once people start to feel like software and websites are exploiting them instead of helping them, they pull back. Not just from one app or one site, but from digital spaces in general.
For any business with a website, that should be a wake-up call. When people become broadly skeptical of digital products, it doesn’t just hurt the worst offenders. It affects everyone, including the teams that are trying to do things the right way.
Why We Completely Rebuilt Our Own Website
Mario’s video put words to something we at Creatives Berlin had been feeling for a while. Our old WordPress site was technically solid, but it was still part of the problem. It used Google Analytics. It needed a cookie banner. It relied on dozens of plugins that added weight, complexity, and friction. All of that served us more than it served our visitors.
That’s why we rebuilt our website from the ground up with Astro. No tracking. No cookie banner, because without cookies, there’s nothing to ask permission for. Minimal JavaScript. Load times under one second. No popups, no exit-intent overlays, no forced newsletter signup.
Not because we’re anti-WordPress. We still build WordPress websites for our clients. We did it because we wanted to prove that an agency website can work without all the noise. In fact, it works better without it.
When someone lands on our site, they should understand what we do in three seconds, not spend those three seconds swatting away overlays.
What Designers and Developers Can Do Better
In his video, Mario points to three practical things designers and developers can start doing immediately:
Question the Requirements
When a client says, “We want users to stay on the site as long as possible,” the right response isn’t, “Okay, let’s add infinite scroll.” The right response is, “Why? What do they need to accomplish? And does this actually help them?”
The same goes for “We need a newsletter popup” or “Let’s add analytics.” The real question is always the same: does this serve the visitor, or does it just serve our own reporting?
Good product work starts with asking better questions, even when the answers make everyone a little uncomfortable.
Learn from Analog Calm
A book doesn’t send push notifications. A notebook doesn’t have infinite scroll. Analog tools work because they offer clarity instead of noise.
This isn’t an argument against digital products. It’s an argument for digital products that borrow the best qualities of analog ones: clear structure, obvious stopping points, and respect for the user’s time. A website should feel like a useful tool, not a maze.
Go Offline Regularly Yourself
If you’re always online, you eventually stop noticing how manipulative digital experiences have become. Mario’s recommendation is simple: go offline regularly and intentionally. Not as punishment, but as recalibration. Once you get used to quiet again, you start to notice just how loud the web has become.
Key Takeaways
- Going analog isn’t technophobia. It’s a reaction to manipulative software and web design.
- More than six hours of personal screen time a day is not just about demand. It’s also about design choices.
- Infinite scroll, autoplay, dark patterns, and aggressive cookie banners are deliberate choices, not unavoidable features.
- Trust is one of the most valuable assets online, and manipulative design erodes it fast.
- Software and websites should help people, not trap them. Less tracking, fewer interruptions, more respect for users’ time.
- A better web experience is possible. Our own site is proof: no tracking, no cookie banner, fast, and clear.
The Original Video
This article is based on the video “Warum Millionen offline gehen (und wir schuld sind)” by Mario from Programmieren mit Mario. It’s worth watching for anyone who designs websites, builds software, or commissions digital products.
At Creatives Berlin, we build websites that help people instead of trapping them. No dark patterns, no manipulation, no tracking, just clear structure, fast load times, and respect for your visitors’ time. If you want a website people can actually trust, get in touch.