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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

#211

Post by ckarmann »

clinta wrote: post #177
ckarmann wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you watch Netflix, you don't watch a competitor. In a way, this autoplay feature removes a friction for the customer that doesn't have to decide what to watch next. This removes the "danger" that the customer think about that cool show that is not provided by Netflix. At the end of the month, the customer may think about how much they use a TV provider and not the other, and decide to keep Netflix and ditch any…

But isn't that just a proxy for retention then? Why optimize for hours watched which correlates with retention when you can just measure and optimize for retention directly?

Ah, I understand what you mean. Well, if you know variable X is a proxy for Y, but Y is a lot longer to measure than X, then I guess it makes sense to optimize X knowing that it will increase Y (if you are sure X will bring Y).

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#212

Post by NateEag »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #79
zazaraka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. Just like high definition video or images. This bill should also ban: large hero images, serving more than 500 KB of JavaScript, making more than 50 HTTP calls when loading a page, causing the fans to spin up when loading the page, unnecessarily using web fonts. Banning these things would make the web so much better.

It'd be awesome to have an extremely lightweight protocol that lets you get the size or approximate size of a resource before download. Maybe a new HTTP method like SIZEOF. But how to make it truthful? Other than client cutting off download at the expressed limit. Would that be good enough? And how to express "fuzzy" sizes like "at least 1MB but might be a little more or less".

I believe you want HTTP HEAD. It's defined to return the same response as a GET but without a body. You can therefore look at the Content-Length response header to see what actually issuing a GET will cost you.

The server should not return fuzzy content lengths: your client should have soft limit ranges rather than a single hard limit.

Of course, the server is not required to support HEAD, nor is it required to include Content-Length, which touches on your real complaint:

Programmers get to write programs the way they want to, and most of them don't share your value of preserving bandwidth and using progressive enhancement.

That is a relational and human problem. There is no technological solution to it.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#213

Post by wolco »

cableshaft wrote: post #199
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…

If I'm watching Netflix, I am fine with autoplay. Youtube too, while we're at it. I.e. if I'm there specifically to watch videos, and you want to autoplay the next video after I'm done, that's fine. What I'm not fine with is places that autoplay that have no business doing it, especially if they do that specifically to brag about how many autoplays it has (i.e. CNN). CNN in particular is my main annoyance, as when I…

Autoplaying a series makes sense. Autoplaying videos as one scrolls down the cnn website causing the site to take hours to load is foolish.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#214

Post by wolco »

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…

The cost produce something is sunk already. If everyone watches (birdbox) and talks about it can get more people to subscribe.

The more you watch the more likely you are satified. They won't make new content for you because you watch more. They know you will watch a variety of shows and will watch some less known content.

Plus view numbers are important for awards and privately they share with producers to encourage them to sell new content/partner up. No matter how much you pay artists still want the world to see what they created.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#215

Post by wolco »

asark wrote: post #188
satya71 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unstoppable play-while-browsing plus the price hikes has me poised to drop it as soon as I finish two shows I'm near the end of. Probably in the next month. Either problem alone wouldn't get me over the "bother to cancel" speedbump, but I dread opening Netflix unless I'm browsing straight to something I already know is on there, these days. If it were still super cheap, whatever, but I can get a couple cheap services…

You could just turn it off in the settings.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#216

Post by nemonemo »

la_barba wrote: post #153
nemonemo wrote: post #22

I have suspicion that these politicians know what they are doing and they are doing these stupid things with the fullest knowledge that the bill does not help the addicted people. Also probably they know these things don't even threaten the tech giants. Then why are they spending their precious time for such a meaningless bill? This makes me think of McConnell gaining support or lobbying from tobacco industry. Maybe…

You don't seem to be familiar with this. They had a hearing in the Senate, which featured testimony of experts in this field. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-youre-being-manipulated-1835...

Do you think this is an important enough issue for a Senate hearing or a bill? I honestly do not.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#217

Post by asark »

wolco wrote: post #215
asark wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unstoppable play-while-browsing plus the price hikes has me poised to drop it as soon as I finish two shows I'm near the end of. Probably in the next month. Either problem alone wouldn't get me over the "bother to cancel" speedbump, but I dread opening Netflix unless I'm browsing straight to something I already know is on there, these days. If it were still super cheap, whatever, but I can get a couple cheap services…

You could just turn it off in the settings.

You can shut off auto-play junk on the menus? Didn't used to be able to. Great news, one of the worst UI features I've ever seen (as in, intended behavior, not a bug).

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#218

Post by jackvalentine »

quest88 wrote: post #163
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.

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?

> Do people worrying about this have some grand idea that if humans legislated this addiction away then.. what?

People can make decisions about where to spend their attention with a lesser burden of addiction design. That's it and that's a fine goal.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#219

Post by nichos »

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…

The Republican party is about personal responsibility as much as the Democrats are for ending wars. Both parties are essentially the same now, and have been for several years.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#220

Post by rkeene2 »

clinta wrote: post #177
ckarmann wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you watch Netflix, you don't watch a competitor. In a way, this autoplay feature removes a friction for the customer that doesn't have to decide what to watch next. This removes the "danger" that the customer think about that cool show that is not provided by Netflix. At the end of the month, the customer may think about how much they use a TV provider and not the other, and decide to keep Netflix and ditch any…

But isn't that just a proxy for retention then? Why optimize for hours watched which correlates with retention when you can just measure and optimize for retention directly?

It's not exactly a proxy, but a leading/lagging indicator, which has its own value.
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