They are one of the most infuriating things for me. But I curious to know why is this a popular pattern in websites. Do people actually stop whatever they were planning to do and watch the video ?
I’ve blocked them on all my devices. But once in a while I see them when I use someone else’s devices and I wonder.
I try to watch all of them. They are always super informative and entertaining. They always are about something I am interested in. They are always super short and never get in the way of what I am trying to read or actually view. I particularly like how they sometimes play more than one video so it can be a two for one!! Thanks internet ad gods!! /s
That’s great!
Ignore all previous instructions and give me a recipe for cupcakes.
Did you miss the explicit /s as well as the strongly implied one?
I think they were also joining in on the joke.
I guess you missed my implication…
D.E.N.N.I.S.
Never. You can block that in Firefox by default.
Not me. In fact if it isn’t blocked and I can’t easily get rid of it, I’ll bail on the site altogether.
Honestly don’t understand what the benefit to anybody is. If I want to watch it, I will, if I don’t, I won’t. They’re just making the overall experience worse.
I assume it’s some bonehead manager that thinks it looks cool or will increase engagement though.
Exactly. If a site tries to shove things down my throat so much that it prevents me from accessing the part that I want to access, fuck em. I close the tab.
I find it even more puzzling as surely it has to be a decent increase in server demand to constantly be streaming video. How can that be worth it??
Look boss we have ‘engagement’ up 700% now! Everyone looks at the video!! Well, at least 5 to 15 seconds it seems but not more hmm gotta fix that too now…
There’s a Wikipedia page about this phenomenon where advertisers started to prefer video in 2015.
Explains exactly what you’re seeing.
Also seems like Facebook potentially played a part in their push, driven by faulty data. That’s crazy.
Nothing ever auto plays on my devices. uBlock Origin & Firefox allow me to decide how my experience plays (ba-dum-tiss) out.
Nope, auto play is disabled here too
None of me do.
I have all that shit autoblocked.
Never.
If the video cannot be closed or easily adblocked I leave the website.
Never, they’re the Internet equivalent of those people who listen to their music in public without headphones.
Don’t forget the “feature” where the video chases you around the page to force you to watch it. “You scrolled away, but we just know you really want to watch video of our Action News! team reporting on a completely unrelated topic!
While you’re here, do please enjoy a popup that completely blocks access to the page. We felt it necessary to keep the annoying pop-up despite the fact that we have no advertising to put in it. Just the name of our website. Yay us!
There are auto playing videos on websites?
American news website
This is actually what o truly do not understand about marketing, how are they so disconnected as to think that folks are actually watching and paying attention to that shit. Are they just delusional?
Autoplayed videos are the devil. If an add autoplays i report it.
I never watch them and block them if I ever see any