If there were 10 commandments to run a news website, this one would figure in the top three—Do Not Let Thy Precious Back Button Exit Thy Page. And yet, livemint.com, the website of media giant HT Media Ltd-owned business media publication Mint, did just that.
This back-button-exit-forever move was implemented as part of a complete website redesign on 20 January 2019. Other drastic changes included a single endless scroll of news stories, a blinkers-on focus on mobile readership, a discomfiting desktop experience akin to mobile, and, apparently, a focus on “personalised” news—all done to unseat its long-reigning competitor, The Economic Times (ET)*.