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.
No. No. No. Do not show me a video. I don’t think anybody wants that, no.
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 guess you missed my implication…
D.E.N.N.I.S.
I think they were also joining in on the joke.
I do, and then I forgot why I was on that website to begin with. Takes me forever to get my bearings back. I hate it.
I see people saying that ublock can get rid of those. If someone can share how, that would be awesome. My ublock only blocks ads.
Right click on the video under ublock select block element. A popup will show up in the bottom right where you can fine tune. If the video has a custom right click menu just do it anywhere else and in the fine tune options click select element then the video. Also make sure you use uBlock Origin.
Have autoplay disabled
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.
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.
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??
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.
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…
They say that spam only ever exists because its a social problem, not a technical one. Spam works, there are people who believe the Nigerian princes are going to give them money.
Autoplay is great for pages that you go to specifically to watch videos. It’s a cancer everywhere else.
Nope, auto play is disabled here too
We all do.
Librewolf, disabled by default.
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!
I hate it when more when I’m on my mobile and have to reserve precious data
