>We tested ask by default and it turned out more users wanted them blocked.
I was one of those users, as I have Nightly installed. I hope you don't seriously think me clicking "no" on the majority of those popups in any way equates to me saying "videos should never autoplay." -- Hell I used my own service and approved one of those dialogs for it.
You should be careful how you read into statistics: there is a huge difference between "90+% of users said no to the autoplay prompt" and "90+% of users think autoplay should be off by default."
>Not sure why you would think your users could not handle that.
I don't think, I know, because I've fielded the numerous reports from users who thought my service was broken when Google[1] decided their "media engagement index" was too low and the videos weren't starting automatically for them.
It is objectively a bad experience for my users if they all have to manually click play and their streams are randomly offset from the host and they see people "spoiling" things in chat. The reality is that many of my users would sit on the page, looking at a play button (that wasn't there before), wondering why people are already talking about the video in chat. "Has it started yet?" "When does it start?" "I think I'm buffering", etc.
You're a benevolent site amidst a maelstrom of websites who eagerly want users to hear and see things that they didn't expect. And very large publishers are perhaps the most guilty. News websites, Facebook ads, and typical websites with some announcer voice yapping away with music in the back, trying to get your attention to Buy something.
So why stop at a pop-up for AutoPlay video?
"The website has requested permission to have autoplay video. Grant (Y/N)"
but also
" " " " .. requested permission to display notifications.."
Why stop there?
" .. requested permission to autoplay media with sound .."
and why not
" .. requested permission to set/store cookies "
Finally, after a drum roll:
"Sign up to this mailing list!" - unblockable JavaScript popup when you're a third down the article.
How many bloody popups would satisfy every single website publisher? Turn all the damn things off, let the designers figure out if they want to point a big giant arrow GIF to where the "Click Here" button to play the video is.
While I can understand the distaste for "dialog overload" the alternative being proposed here is that my service is broken for my users, or they go into `about:config`. My average user doesn't know, or care, what `about:config` is, so that's a non-starter. (Many of them are lost just going through the usual Preferences.) -- Plus I wouldn't want them to enable autoplay globally just to use my service.
At least with the webcam/microphone/notification APIs the average user has a chance at understanding what's going on, they are not being given the same choice here, and that's what I take issue with. Believe me I get it: every week there's some site that makes me go "what on earth do they need push notifications for?" -- I'm still happy to make that choice, though.
If this is about giving the user's more control over what they see: then the setting should not be hidden in about:config, full stop. I know this may be lost on the HN crowd, but doing that relegates the functionality to a small fraction of power-users.
If this is about giving the user's more control over what they see: then the setting should not be hidden in about:config, full stop. I know this may be lost on the HN crowd, but doing that relegates the functionality to a small fraction of power-users.
You know what, I think we agree! That's two votes for "move some stuff out of top-secret about:config and into Settings where the mortals can actually use it, it's useful for them."
I was one of those users, as I have Nightly installed. I hope you don't seriously think me clicking "no" on the majority of those popups in any way equates to me saying "videos should never autoplay." -- Hell I used my own service and approved one of those dialogs for it.
You should be careful how you read into statistics: there is a huge difference between "90+% of users said no to the autoplay prompt" and "90+% of users think autoplay should be off by default."
>Not sure why you would think your users could not handle that.
I don't think, I know, because I've fielded the numerous reports from users who thought my service was broken when Google[1] decided their "media engagement index" was too low and the videos weren't starting automatically for them.
It is objectively a bad experience for my users if they all have to manually click play and their streams are randomly offset from the host and they see people "spoiling" things in chat. The reality is that many of my users would sit on the page, looking at a play button (that wasn't there before), wondering why people are already talking about the video in chat. "Has it started yet?" "When does it start?" "I think I'm buffering", etc.
[1]: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-p...