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.
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.
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??
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.
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.
Never.
I have all that shit autoblocked.
If the video cannot be closed or easily adblocked I leave the website.
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!
Never, they’re the Internet equivalent of those people who listen to their music in public without headphones.
There are auto playing videos on websites?
American news websites
Autoplayed videos are the devil. If an add autoplays i report it.
I never watch them and block them if I ever see any