Death to Autoplay ⇥ tidbits.com

Adam Engst of TidBits is mad as hell about autoplay:

The auto-play offense that has pushed me over the edge is Netflix’s Apple TV app, which auto-plays previews for movies and TV shows as you browse through Netflix’s library. Within 3 seconds of when you navigate to a show’s icon, it starts playing a preview for the show, complete with audio. It’s difficult even to read the show’s description in that amount of time, much less reflect on whether you might want to watch the show. As soon as the audio starts, it interrupts whatever thoughts might be going through your head (Josh Centers made this example video; it shows what he hears as his 5-year-old browses).

This behaviour drives me absolutely nuts. It drives everyone I know nuts. And here’s the thing: Netflix knows it drives people nuts. Last year, Dan Jackson of Thrillist cited several pieces pointing out just how awful and irritating and downright shitty this feature is. There’s a Twitter account dedicated to the terribleness of Netflix autoplay.

But there’s nothing we can do about it because I guess whatever metrics they use to measure engagement or whatever are overriding common sense and basic decency. Short of unsubscribing, it seems we’re stuck with this because Netflix simply won’t listen to the complaints of their users.