I was also thinking about the footnote problem, while reading PG's most recent essay [1]. Maybe, it is time to kill or supersede footnotes on the web which are one of the examples of the paper text format skeuomorphisms, more common in scientific writing. Footnotes give the serious feeling of a well planned and well thought attire to essays where the main point is elaborated and the distractions are left out, for a delayed, independent, optional reading. However they make the deep readers'[2] experience worse; mainly they prefer to follow the true thought-flow of the writer, and evaluate each footnote in its context rather than separate from the main text.
Comments
I was also thinking about the footnote problem, while reading PG's most recent essay [1]. Maybe, it is time to kill or supersede footnotes on the web which are one of the examples of the paper text format skeuomorphisms, more common in scientific writing. Footnotes give the serious feeling of a well planned and well thought attire to essays where the main point is elaborated and the distractions are left out, for a delayed, independent, optional reading. However they make the deep readers'[2] experience worse; mainly they prefer to follow the true thought-flow of the writer, and evaluate each footnote in its context rather than separate from the main text.
[1] How to get startup ideas http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
[2] By deep readers, I mean people who don't want to miss a single idea in the essay.