I meant to say this for a while. I'm increasingly annoyed by this "long read" format. It might be just because when I'm skimming through hn I'm looking for quick information rather than a long read. But it's at least partly because these pieces seem to have all been written by the same person. They have the same exact structure, which is probably taught in some journalism school: long winding narration, interspersed with flashbacks and side digressions, that present its subject as a suspensful adventure composed of multiple intertwining threads and leading to some unexpected discovery.
I understand that this format somehow works, but at the same time I can't escape the feeling of being served something out of an information mcdonald's, prepared and wrapped always in the same exact, proven and average way. And now when reading such a piece my brain screams "skip that stupid flashback and digression and that new character's introduction, say what you really have to say and let's end it here".
I think for me the problem is more the headline than the article. If the headline was "How the flight recorder of Flight 980 Was recovered" I would have known what the article was actually about. In this case, I was frustrated because I wanted an actual answer to the question and that didn't come until the last part and even then it was just an educated guess.
That's a pity. One of the things I loved about the pre-2000's Outside Magazine was the quality of the long-form writing. After it was clearly turning into a yuppified Sports Illustrated, I kept my subscription only for David Quammen's excellent field biology articles. Then he left. And I cancelled the subscription.
The problem is that the format you describe is employed whether or not the actual content merits the lengthy treatment. Sometimes its just a 30 second story jammed into a 10-minute container.
No, the problem is that even if a story deserves the lengthy treatment, it might not deserve this lengthy treatment. Maybe it deserves a different style, or narration. It's not that the only way to tell a long story is to start it in medias res, then digress to the summer of a few years before, then introduce a side character, then jump back to a mystery, then expand a side story a bit, then proceed a little forward on the main thread of the narration... it's just like randomly pouring salt and spices on a food to make it tastier. It would ruin the best of dishes.
I understand that this format somehow works, but at the same time I can't escape the feeling of being served something out of an information mcdonald's, prepared and wrapped always in the same exact, proven and average way. And now when reading such a piece my brain screams "skip that stupid flashback and digression and that new character's introduction, say what you really have to say and let's end it here".