Site Is Closed on Sundays

I find all this anti-screen stuff kinda weird. Why avoid screens one day week? Do you also avoid electricity? Running water and sanitation? Refuse to use a wheel or mechanical advantage? It's almost Amish to me. Where do you draw the line, and why? Why a screens but not e.g. electromagnetism?

I have young kids. There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment - that using a computer/tablet/phone is somehow inherently bad and harmful. My kids love watching TV but I am fortunate that they also love imaginative play with traditional toys (teddy bears, Lego, cardboard boxes etc) more and they only watch shows maybe 1 or 2 hours a month. I think it is because we don't have a physical TV in the house - there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids).

I think this is part of the problem. It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.

Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction.

But I do not understand why on earth you would not use these amazing, life-improving, wondrous tools? Like if you needed to hammer in a nail you refuse to use a metal hammer "because technology" and what? you just bludgeon it in with your fists instead? I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.

The website of the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a christian newspaper (of a very strict Reformed variety) in the Netherlands, is closed on Sundays as well. https://www.rd.nl/

I told a friend one time, what if there was a web site that had opening hours.

He said, you can already see the opening hours of all the stores and stuff on Google Maps.

I said, no, not a website like that. I mean, the website itself is open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and outside of that it’s closed.

My friend looked at me and just said, why?

Idk, I think it would be neat, I said.

My friend didn’t get it. This guy gets it.

There is also a baby products online store in the Netherlands that for religious reasons is closed on Sunday. You can browse the site but you can't buy anything.

The page is in Dutch, it explains that they're closed because get believe Sunday is a day for rest: https://www.babypark.nl/zondag/info-bp.html

In Israel, many sites are "closed" on Sabbath, unfortunately. This was a recent controversy about this: https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/rymwhdedmg (Hebrew)

In the US state of New Jersey some counties restrict the sales of tools and hardware (like something you might need to urgently buy for a home repair from Home Depot) on Sundays:

https://www.google.com/search?&q=new+jersey+blue+laws+tools+...

As a person from the west coast it is always funny to me to encounter places with "blue laws" for no product sales on Sundays, or "dry counties", primarily in the US south/southeast.

In the Netherlands there are plenty of websites which close on Sunday for religious reasons.

For example:

https://www.babypark.nl

In India, I remember many government websites that allowed form submission only during office hours.

Visitor’s Sunday or owner’s Sunday? It seems to be the former as the stated purpose suggests a PSA function and less about reducing owner’s burden in maintaining uptime.

If that’s the case, you could consider using pre-render JavaScript to detect what day it is in the browser. Then temporarily redirect Sunday-identifying browsers to a “Closed On Sunday” page.

B&H Photo Video is probably the most well known example, they won't accept an order on the sabbath.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=b%26h+sab...

But the site still functions to browse.

Most non-restaurant stores are closed in Poland on Sundays. At first I found it a bit inconvenient, but as I've lived here longer (going on ten years) I really appreciate it. It's a forced "slow down" day that's society-wide. It also helps push back against the constant desire to inject money and capital into every aspect of life.

It would never be allowed in the US, but I do think a designated "don't buy stuff" day once a week would be a really good idea, as well.

A well-known Catholic in Poland, he runs his own shop, which is also closed on Sundays.

https://cejrowski.com/sklep/

It's their site and they can do whatever they like, but it's pretty silly. If you want to avoid screens, avoid screens. Don't make your addiction my problem

We would warmly welcome him in Germany

I spent a while trying to figure out why the site was open and working perfectly. Turns out uBlock keeps the site open on a Sunday and it's so splendidly written that it works like one of those old-time websites; the links work when you click them.

With Internet, we live in an always-on culture.

It contrasts with times before, when we actually had to wait for a monthly magazine, and even if we wanted to watch a movie, it was aired (say) the next Tue 7PM.

While now we have all convenience, there is no anticipation - or rest.

I remember the records query section of the Belgian National Bank website used to be closed outside business hours (weekdays 9-5).

https://www.nbb.be/nl/balanscentrale/raadplegen/consult

They are technically incorrect.

Sundays last about 50 hours globally. From Kiritimati (UTC+14) to Baker Island and Howland Island (UTC-12).

I wish more sites would apply the 50 hours closing window, preferably 3.36 days a week.

It's not been the case for probably more than 20 years, but I remember that in the past the official website of the Italian Postal Service [1] used to be closed out of office hours.

https://poste.it

I remember back in the days a Car Insurance website which only allowed you to use it during working hours. Never understood the mechanism, surely they weren't getting quotes live from actuaries or anything.

The shop link is still “open”.

Stuff like this will really break your visibility on search engines like google etc.

"shop" still works

Turning a static site off is excellent ragebait

> I’m trying to avoid screens at least one day out of the week, and this is my way of encouraging others to consider doing the same.

Sorry but I find this incredibly paternalistic.

What if I am avoiding screens one day out of the week—on Saturday? Heck, maybe I avoid screens Monday—Saturday and Sunday is my only screen day?

It's great that you're avoiding screens on Sunday! Really! Blocking pages for everyone else just makes the world a very slightly worse place for no benefit.

I first thought it was a neat idea, but the exception for his shop makes the closure look a little hypocritical.

"This site is closed on Sundays -- except the shop of course, the actual type of thing that is usually open or closed in the physical world, because when money comes into play, there is no pretending it wasn't just for show."

Love it. I started a fun side project this weekend to also reduce my screen time: turning articles I bookmark online into a personal printed magazine that I can then read offline [0]. I just printed the first personal edition that I will read on my flight next week, including a few articles I found on HN :)

[0] https://www.unscroll.ch

There are websites in Japan that are only "open" during Japanese business hours.

Skeuomorpharaseeism

This makes about as much sense as blue laws, and suffers from the same failure mode: controlling other people is not a substitute for self-control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States

Sunday is my day for boycotting religion's effects on society, so I take a break from observing any form of worship, abstinence, or superstition on Sunday, just as I do every other day of the week.

Mitch Hedberg would appreciate my internal consistency:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHA5CIL0fg

If screen time is bad for you, why not reduce your own screen time every day? That would be seven times as effective. And why go out of your way to eliminate other people's screen time instead of your own?

You don't have to turn off your server to keep yourself from opening your own web page. In fact, the server isn't off at all: it remains online all Sunday to serve a paternalistic sermon telling everyone to go away, complete with a link to a swag shop that remains open for business, like a church with a gift shop.

None of this prevents you from reading a cached copy, working on the site locally, or watching stand-up comedy and cat videos on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9oitkXG3Y

There is a purely client-side, and far more effective, solution: just don't open your own website, or anything else on your screen. Withholding it from everybody else substitutes access control for self-control.

Obviously this is nowhere near as malicious or consequential as opposing same-sex marriage. But it follows the same logic on a much smaller scale: "I choose to abstain from this, therefore you must abstain from it too."

The bigots aren't satisfied with simply not marrying someone of the same sex themselves; they feel compelled to make love illegal for everyone else, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 1/4 days a year, for an entire lifetime.

He owns the site and is entitled to close it whenever he likes. But calling the inconvenience "encouragement" doesn't make it any less paternalistic.

If he practices what he preaches, it's a pity he won't see or engage with this discussion of his Sunday closure while it's still open -- or at least while it's still fresh.

But if I love his website, I can read it on archive.org any day of the week.

So what's next -- blocking archive.org?

Related:

2025 What if your website had business hours? (2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647598