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New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

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Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#161

Post by RangerScience »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #132
orev wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: how do you feel about having been involved in that feature, knowing that you were creating an addictive product and trying to get people more hooked on it? You might try to say that people have free will and can do what they want, but you know that the reason it’s done is exactly because it’s addictive.

I left Netflix mostly because of this. I've always believed that too much TV was bad for you and I didn't like thinking about how to get people to spend more time on the couch. It doesn't feel great.

Well, if it makes you feel a bit better, I love autoplay because most of the time I'm watching Netflix I'm cooking/cleaning/etc. I definitely clean less when there's nothing left that I want to watch, and autoplay means I don't have to break that flow.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#162

Post by RandallBrown »

jjulius wrote: post #123
castis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where do we draw the line here? Ive implemented infinite scrolling on various forms of list-views over the years for dashboards here and there. Do we categorize and label what would or would not be 'intentionally addictive' content and then ban that specifically?

It looks like this bill is targeted towards social media apps, which would be an OK line, at least IMO.

That's not exactly a super well defined line though.

Slack has infinite scrolling and is mostly used for work, but I also use it with friends and you can't deny there's the same social media type feedback loop with Slack reactions.

LinkedIn and Yammer are "professional" social networks. People use them to get "real work" done, but they're absolutely social media too.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#163

Post by quest88 »

orev wrote: post #92
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…

Serious question: how do you feel about having been involved in that feature, knowing that you were creating an addictive product and trying to get people more hooked on it? You might try to say that people have free will and can do what they want, but you know that the reason it’s done is exactly because it’s addictive.

Something I keep wondering about: For as far as I can recall there has always been something people are addicted to. In the 90s and early 2000s people were worried about TV time. Now that attention has moved around a bit: Netflix, facebook, instagram, YouTube, etc. So, who cares? Do people worrying about this have some grand idea that if humans legislated this addiction away then.. what?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#164

Post by ilovetux »

I would like to see warnings on certain websites which use user retention tactics such as these to prominently display warnings like cigarette companies are required to do. Something like the following:

"Facebook is known to be addictive and use deceptive practices in user interface design to influence you into spending an unhealthy amount time on their platform in order to maximize the number of advertisements you view."

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#165

Post by segmondy »

Tech needs to fight. There are tons of new regulations being pushed to regulate tech with politics. It's going to end very badly. This is not about caring for people, but controlling tech. People care about high hospital bills, expensive insurance and high college costs. Why are these same politicians not writing new bills to fix those? Why do they want to tame Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Google, Amazon?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#166

Post by scarface74 »

jressey wrote: post #138
saurik wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why hours watched? Because Netflix wants as much of your time as you're willing to give. The more ingrained they are in your life, the less elastic your demand. We've seen them raise prices and remove just about all of the worthwhile content, and they have more subscribers than ever. Stay tuned for more of this.

They didn’t “remove” content. It was taken from them by the owners.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#167

Post by scarface74 »

segmondy wrote: post #165

Tech needs to fight. There are tons of new regulations being pushed to regulate tech with politics. It's going to end very badly. This is not about caring for people, but controlling tech. People care about high hospital bills, expensive insurance and high college costs. Why are these same politicians not writing new bills to fix those? Why do they want to tame Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Google, Amazon?

Because tech companies are run by the “liberal elite” and they don’t bribe enough congressmen.

People in tech should be much more concerned than they are about the government encroaching on it. The government does not represent big states/big cities in proportion to the population once you consider the tiniest state has the same two senators as the largest.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#168

Post by homonculus1 »

stri8ed wrote: post #60
csense wrote: post #25

If this is something people want, why does it need a legislative fix? Couldn't we just implement a technical solution and let people choose whether to use it? Like a browser plugin that stops videos from automatically playing?

This could just as well be said about opiates. Human's are not very good at regulating ourselves, when we encounter artificial signals that would have meant success in an earlier time. Not to mention minors, who do not yet have the physical capacity to regulate themselves. Not to say I support this regulation, but there is something to be said for protecting us from our primal selves.

I know you're not saying the government should fully regulate everything, but I see drugs used to demonstrate need for government intervention in people's choices despite drug policy being perhaps the most visible and painful failure of such paternalistic policymaking. Namely because it hasn't protected people from themselves, it hasn't treated anybody's addiction, it mainly just creates violent black markets and saddles nonviolent offenders with a permanent criminal record.

Cynically, I think the real purpose of these laws always looks more like protecting entrenched interests rather than helping people who would get better if only they had some legislator making their life choices from a thousand miles away.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#169

Post by phil248 »

Banning things is obviously silly but I wouldn't mind regulations that force media outlets to give subscribers some simple options so we can choose exactly how we consume the media we pay for.

That might wreck the holy grail of A/B testing that these companies live and die by, but it would be fantastic for the consumer.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#170

Post by satya71 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #150
saurik wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

At least for my case, these optimizations directly led me to stop watching Netflix.
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