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.
Never. You can block that in Firefox by default.
I have all that shit autoblocked.
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?
Not me, and most people here won’t. You’re asking the wrong demographic.
My mother for example, she watches everything on any website she visits, and she doesn’t always tap video popups away since she knows she sometimes gets accidentally redirected elsewhere. My father and I have offered her adblockers many times, but she always strongly rejects it. She doesn’t want anyone meddling with her phone and she finds adblockers annoying because, very occasionally, they will block content she actually wants to watch and no, she doesn’t remember how to allow permissions for exceptions in such cases.
I bet she’s like the majority of people out there. Most don’t mind the ads and some even go for the bait.
Yep, we all know they’re horrible UI/UX, but OP is asking a demographic who knows what UI/UX even means. Most people see nothing wrong with the modern internet, and view ads and unskippable videos as the norm, with no alternative, and happily consume it all.
This is my wife. I have a network adblocker and had to whitelist google ads because she wanted to see the pictures of products when searching even though they’re google ads and she knows it. Doesn’t matter, she actually likes them. Gahhhhhhh.
Oh my that sounds so frustrating hah!
There are auto playing videos on websites?
If the video cannot be closed or easily adblocked I leave the website.
None of me do.
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 want. 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.
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??
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…
Have autoplay disabled
Nope, auto play is disabled here too
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.
We all do.
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!
Librewolf, disabled by default.
