Back then I saw him as the enemy of creative freedom but today I have to admit I agree with many of the things he said. Especially about the lame attempts at getting the user to stay on a site
Nielsen and A List Apart used to be the go-to sources for guidance on good web design. It's sad to read through that list as see that majority of sites published today make every mistake from that list.
Note that this very much includes new tabs as well. Do not add target=_blank without a very good reason since this breaks the user agent defaults. One very bad reason: internal links stay in my tab, but external links open in a new tab. No they don’t, they never have, & your website is not a snowflake. What you did is remove agency as there are a myriad of ways to override how to open a link in new window/tab from the user input side, but there is no way to do this to keep it in the current tab/window because it’s expected to be the default behavior.
"3d sitemaps" - Wow, I did not know there was a time of the internet where people wanted and invested in 3d sitemaps! Sounds like a an interesting point of research for interesting UI experiments
To point out the obvious, all but the "lack of biographies" have only gotten worse. Maybe the biographies have too, but it doesn't seem as relevant as how the back button is now completely broken and links open new tabs all over the place, despite having a mouse button for doing just that.
Today though, it reads as true as ever.
It's 2023, half these issues are still there and I still don't have my flying car.