New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling • Hacker News Board

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#141

Post by hawski » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

waitwut2 wrote: post #110

mFixman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't turn off autoplay I'm pretty sure you can turn it off for all devices from desktop Netflix's settings. I somehow don't have autoplay enabled when I watch any series.

What do you mean "desktop Netflix"? You mean the web site? Please let me know where this setting is! I would love to turn this off but have never found a way.

Go here: https://www.netflix.com/HdToggle and then read from step 6, or...

go to: https://www.netflix.com/HdToggle#bxid_autoplay_true so you can move straight to step 7, or...

1. Select your profile

2. Hover mouse pointer over your avatar in upper right corner

3. Click "Account"

4. Scroll to "MY PROFILE" section

5. Click "Playback settings"

6. Scroll to "Auto-Play" section

7. Uncheck "Play next episode automatically"

8. Click "Save"

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#142

Post by Semaphor » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

missingcolours wrote: post #66

GhostVII wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the choice is to just leave Netflix when you are done an episode. Maybe it's just me but I've never felt like the autoplay makes me much more likely to keep watching, it is just convenient so I don't have to go through all of the menus again. If we ban autoplay on Netflix, we should also ban cable I suppose (not a big loss, really), since cable will autoplay indefinitely.

This kind of sounds to me like "you can stop smoking by not buying anymore cigarettes". True, but glosses over the addictive aspects which led to cigarettes being regulated as they are. And this isn't an accidental property of these apps, they're intentionally engineered features to drive "engagement"/addiction.

I realize, I'm not the typical customer (I think autoplaying the next episode was the last feature Netflix introduced that didn't annoy me and made me think about canceling), but for me the only thing that matters when watching TV in the evening is if it's the penultimate episode (because those tend to end with cliffhangers and I'll want to watch the final one as well) and how tired I am/how late it is.

All autoplay does for me is saving me the click on next which I'd click 100% of those times when I don't close Netflix right at the end of the old or start of the next episode.

I can't even understand how it would make people watch more (unless they barely watch and just didn't realize a new one started)

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#143

Post by godshatter » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

Even if we could all agree that autoplay videos and endless scrolling are terrible ideas, I still don't understand why we should get the government involved. Use a service that has them, or refuse to. Find another service that doesn't use them. "There should be a law..." is often the wrong response. At least in my opinion.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#144

Post by gregmac » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #11

GhostVII wrote: post #9

Things like requiring accept and decline checkboxes to be the same font seem somewhat reasonable, even if I disagree with it, but banning autoplay videos and endless scrolling is insane. There are legitimate uses for autoplay videos (ex. Netflix playing next episode, YouTube playing next song when you are listening to music) which I personally use all the time and appreciate, and endless scrolling is great when you d…

While I agree that it's hard to support legislation that's likely to have a lot of unintended consequences, it's also important to realize what's driving folks to introduce a bill like this. It's also worth pointing out that (in particular with Netflix) your example is its own counter-argument. You can't turn off autoplay, and that's the opposite of letting me make choices for myself. There's also plenty of other exa…

You can turn off autoplay from the website, under Playback Settings:

https://i.imgur.com/gctaiHK.png

https://www.netflix.com/HdToggle

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#145

Post by la_barba » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #50

nix0n wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bill as written[0] is limited to social media sites and has an exception for music playlists, so both your examples would be allowed. [0] https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-07/So...

For YouTube I don't use a playlist, I just let it pick the next recommendation, so that would still be banned. They added an exception for advertisements, which is too bad since that is the only kind of autoplay video I would really be excited about getting rid of. The definition of autoplay in the bill is "The use of a process that automatically plays music or videos (other than advertisements) without an express, s…

Its possible to me the auto-play setting something that is enabled voluntarily by the user. This would solve your problem.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#146

Post by AdrianB1 » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

Fjolsvith wrote: post #108

I doubt this will happen. First Amendment free speech restriction will get batted down by the Supreme Court.

In theory yes, but there are enough cases where amendments were castrated by the SCOTUS so that one cannot predict what will happen with this one.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#147

Post by jkingsbery » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #140

I apologize for making a comment with regard to politics, but I can't help feeling frustrated by the narrative around curbing "addictive behavior" coming from the political party that consistently extols the virtues of "personal responsibility" and regularly characterizes the desire to regulate harmful behavior as the machinations of a "nanny state". I find it especially frustrating in this case because the specifics…

As someone who generally votes for Republicans, I agree 100% with you. It'll be interesting to see how much support it gets from other Republicans, but I'm not sure that it's good for the brand of "bias toward letting the market decide" to have a bill that will swoop in and decide for us. Based on his biography page (https://www.hawley.senate.gov/biography), this seems to be more about making life hard for tech companies. If anything though, it seems like it will make life harder mostly on new entrants.

Also, it seems impractical to implement. As soon as those specific tactics are gone, others will be implemented that do something similar in spirit if not in letter.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#148

Post by neilv » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

I'll be the first to say that dotcoms overall have become an industry of greedy and grossly irresponsible and sneaky backstabbing sociopaths, but... the idea of legislators trying to get into the fine details of practice, and keep up with it, doesn't immediately sound like it's likely to be effective.

And that's even before we factor in the possibility of lobbyist influence.

While you're banning infinite scrolling (which has legitimate applications, and people should be horrified that such basic neutral ideas of communication could become illegal), the dotcom bad actors are running circles around you -- with numerous other dark pattern tactics, and sometimes entire technology infrastructure architectures and platforms irrevocably designed around what could also be considered dark patterns.

I'm reminded of some other abusive industries, with regulations that create waste, and barriers to entry for upstart competitors, while not doing nearly enough to reign in abuses.

Bring on the regulations (and, hopefully, eventually, a culture of professionalism and responsibility will follow), but first figure out how to make the regulations wise and genuinely effective, not counterproductive distractions.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#149

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

modoc wrote: post #72

lloeki wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find autoplay on Netflix highly inconvenient. Disable it and you can continue to watch the next episode with just one button press. There is no need for navigating around. Also super useful when you happen to fall asleep in front of the TV so that it doesn't keep pumping all the way through the night. Autoplay on Netflix is IMHO a dark pattern to feed on attention and FOMO.

Is it any different than traditional TV?

Traditional TV usually switches shows, indicating I'm done. Netflix skips credits and openers, turning an entire season into one 20 hour episode.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#150

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #95

rsweeney21 wrote: post #75

I'm the dev that built Netflix's autoplay of the next episode. We built it first on the web player because it is easy to A/B test new features there. We called it "post-play" at the time. When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention. We would come up with all sorts of ideas to try out, and release them to small user populations of about…

> When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention. So, I totally understand retention: that one makes sense to me, as that's revenue for Netflix; if I'm more likely to renew my account, then Netflix makes more money. But... I honestly don't understand why Netflix is optimizing for hours watched, and in fact I had assumed it would be the op…

> So, I totally understand retention: that one makes sense to me, as that's revenue for Netflix; if I'm more likely to renew my account, then Netflix makes more money. But... I honestly don't understand why Netflix is optimizing for hours watched, and in fact I had assumed it would be the opposite

Hours watched differences may predict retention differences farther in the future better than short-term measurements of retention, which may measure reaction to changes more than it measures the steady-state effect of the change.

If you want to act on A/B tests faster than directly measuring long-term retention would allow, having a proxy measure of long-term retention that mitigates the risk of optimizing for transitional rather than steady-state retention has value.