I disable autoplay and it usually works. I close the windows where it doesn't work and that works for the remaining cases.

I think the sites trying to do end-runs are generally low-quality and it will be relatively easy to ignore them. Sites like the Atlantic, The New Yorker, and etc don't do end-runs and so disabling makes my experience sooo much better.

There's a massive middle in there of HuffPost, Forbes, and their ilk (each is probably an arm of a content marketing villain such as Demand Media or similar) who will autoplay for you all day long if you want. Maybe even on every story.

What does your friend think of this?

This is just more fuel to add to the pro-ad-blocking argument.

Ad companies are filth.

>Ad companies are filth.

To be honest, I am wondering more and more if those aggressive unwanted advertisement are having an impact on peoples behavior and emotional baseline. Similar to road rage. Except you dont always sit in your car, but most of us spend significant parts of their lives in front of screens.

Why would they go to all this effort? Clearly, this is to play video to users who clearly do NOT want video auto playing. All you accomplish is pissing off the user and wasting your own bandwidth.

If I came across a website that did this I would probably never come back.

See your misconception here is thinking that any ad company sees you as anything more than just some eyeballs to be ruthlessly mined for money and data.

They don’t give a toss how you actually feel about the ad. They don’t care that it’s wasting bandwidth, they’ve got ads to show you and nothing should stand in their way as it’s evidently their divine right because they’re gods gift to the internet.

> They don’t give a toss how you actually feel about the ad.

Of course they do, their money depends on having people engage with those ads.

Not necessarily. Impressions are important too. Just because you don't think you noticed that annoying (random example) coca cola ad doesn't mean that it won't unconsciously influence your decision to put that into your tray instead of Pepsi next time you're at the grocery store.

I’m probably in a minority but I consciously and intentionally penalize ads that bypass my psychotic-level blocking. Getting me to notice their ad will cost them, I make sure of it with vindictive fervor.

Same, I don't understand why more people aren't like this

Yeah, so they do care about how you feel about the ad. If you associated that ad with bad feelings you might not want to buy that brand next time you see it.

"Sure those users usually hate auto-playing videos, but they'll love our auto-playing videos! We don't want them to miss out!"

The ad companies don't necessarily care about whether or not the ads help their clients' brands. They don't get paid for that. They get paid for other things, like delivering impressions.

The site that the ad runs on might care about how this affects reader loyalty, but, if they've decided to go with ad networks, they have rather limited editorial control over what ads the networks choose to run on their sites.

Well, it's not like most visitors have adblock disabled except for websites with annoying ads.

So, for those visitors who have adblock, you don't do any more harm by serving annoying ads.

For those who don't have adblock, well, you do do harm, but the cost gets spread over the entire ad industry, which is why adblock usage has grown [0]. On the other hand, the money made from serving the annoying ad and getting the impression comes directly to you (and not the industry).

In short, benefit is immediate to you. Damage is delayed and doesn't come directly to you.

Anyway, I despise this kind of reasoning.

ps. People who worked there seemed quite decent. And that somehow showed in part of their biz practices too. E.g. they intentionally refrained from tracking visitors.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach...

This is commonly called tragedy of the commons.

They get paid to deliver videos, no matter what.

This.

Too many clients (from an agency perspective) are implicitly given good advice "Your potential customer base isn't interested in this" but someone has to ask "How do we get them to see it anyway?"

They have forgotten that potential customers don't have to do business with them. They have options. Time for folks to re-read Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing", it seems.

Marketers for ad companies live in a world of self delusion.

answer: money

Compile your own video decoder to webassembly and render the video to a canvas.