Why I Couldn’t Upload on Snai—and What It Taught Me

The cursor blinked like a slow heartbeat. I’d spent twenty minutes selecting files, double-checking formats, even restarting my router—yet Snai’s upload button remained stubbornly inert. No error message, no loading bar. Just silence. It wasn’t my first rodeo with online platforms, but this felt different. Snai Italia’s interface, usually sleek, had turned into a brick wall.

I dug deeper. The issue wasn’t my connection; Speedtest confirmed 120 Mbps. The files? PNGs under 2MB, well within limits. Then I noticed it: the upload modal’s tiny, grayed-out text—‘Caricamento in corso…’—frozen mid-animation. A UX fail so subtle it bordered on gaslighting. As Jakob Nielsen once noted, ‘Users don’t read manuals; they infer functionality from visual cues.’ Here, the cue was a lie.

Frustration morphed into curiosity. I switched browsers—Chrome to Firefox—no change. Cleared cache. Toggled VPN. Still nothing. Then, a breakthrough: Snai’s mobile app worked flawlessly. The desktop version, though, was stuck in limbo. Was this a deliberate nudge toward their app? Or just sloppy coding? Either way, the disconnect between their ‘Metodi di pagamento sicuri e veloci’ and this upload fiasco felt jarring.

I recalled Don Norman’s ‘Design of Everyday Things’: ‘Good design communicates.’ Snai’s upload flow did the opposite. No progress indicators, no retry prompts. Just a void. I imagined their dev team debating whether to add a timeout warning—then deciding against it. A misstep for a platform boasting a 9.5 rating.

By the third attempt, I’d developed a ritual: open DevTools, monitor network requests. The API call to /upload returned a 504—gateway timeout. No fallback, no grace. I wondered how many users quit here, assuming they’d done something wrong. Snai’s ‘Bonus di benvenuto generoso’ suddenly felt hollow. What good was 1200 EUR if you couldn’t even deposit?

Then, the fix: a support chat agent suggested disabling ad-blockers. ‘Some extensions interfere.’ Sure enough, uBlock Origin was the culprit. A simple note in their FAQ could’ve saved me an hour. But Snai’s docs were sparse—another missed chance to build trust.

In the end (wait, no—finally), the files uploaded. But the experience lingered. Snai’s polished exterior hid cracks. Their payment methods might be secure, but their UX? A work in progress. I’d return—for the bonuses, the spins—but with caution. And maybe a backup browser.