One thing I'm always reminded of when I hear about an HN reader bemoaning a feature/policy: Behind every feature change (like auto plays), there's a product manager who's tested changes to show that it maximizes some short-term metric.

Users get the products they "want", not what they need — or deserve:

Make Something People Need

> We are surrounded by well engineered — and increasingly addictive — technology that shapes what we do and how we think. Especially when you work at a large tech company, how do you trade giving users what they want and your own business’s profitability, with the negative effects that this leads to?

https://www.nemil.com/musings/make-something-people-need.htm...